


The Quest for the Holy Grail

by AndreaLyn



Series: Modern Day Legends [2]
Category: King Arthur (2004)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, M/M, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-05
Updated: 2014-07-05
Packaged: 2018-02-07 14:09:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1901919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years have passed, but circumstances have changed and it's time to bring everyone back for one more heist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Quest for the Holy Grail

0.  
  
Tristan peered up through the darkness, the harsh slivers of light cutting across his impassive face. He didn’t move, didn’t even flinch as a fist came pounding against the table in the old room of the dusty warehouse. The sharp whistle that was meant to get his attention merely cut through him like a dull annoyance. All he did was look up with dead eyes, just past the man, deliberately annoying him by looking to the side and not at him.   
  
“Ragazzo,” the word was growled at him and he was punched across the jaw for what must have been the fifth time. “Sguardi me.”  
  
Tristan cocked his head to the side, cracking his neck back and forth easily. His face had a terrible itch. “Signori,” he turned to some of the henchmen that had been torturing him for the past hour. “Do you mind untying me?” he asked casually, turning back to the man interrogating him. “An itch I can’t scratch,” he explained evenly, glancing to the left and to the right, not very surprised when no one made a single move forward to help him with the ropes.  
  
He would just have to do it himself.  
  
He began to rub the rope back and forth slowly as he glared up at the man – his movements hid by his long coat. “What do you want?” he asked slowly, so that the idiot would understand him. Moonlight shone in through the upper windows of the warehouse, cracked and dingy.   
  
If he was going to be interrogated, he simply wished they’d find a nicer place to do it. A man who believed that the highest degree of comfort was the key to getting your information had once questioned Tristan. He postulated that when a man is at ease, secrets simply slip past the lips without the knowledge that they had actually been let loose. That had been wonderful. Spa treatment, first class food, sure, the wine had been poisoned, but the idiot had used a poison that could be detected by scent. Tristan both loved and loathed idiots. They kept him alive, but they bored him terribly.   
  
“Were you the one who killed my master?” the man demanded, slamming both palms down on the table and glaring at Tristan.  
  
Tristan simply smirked. “I kill many masters. What was yours like?”  
  
The man growled and backhanded Tristan once more. “Insolence! You know who! You killed him last week, said it was revenge for your dead…your dead…” He snapped his fingers viciously at one of his peons and Tristan spat to the side. The man whispered a word in the interrogator’s ear. “Ah yes, your  _lover_. Your dead lover.” He chuckled. “But you made a mistake, ragazzo, you killed the wrong man, didn’t you?” The man nudged Tristan’s chin up with the barrel of his gun.   
  
Since that day in the graveyard so many years ago – four years, three months – when he had whispered to Dinidan, when he had told him, “I may be joining you soon”, he had dedicated his life to finding Dinidan’s killer. Four years, three months, twelve deaths on his hands and none of them the culprit. Though, he’d found a trail and that was the important thing. Bread crumbs that led him to the real killer, to the man he would delight in killing. But first…  
  
The ropes were loosening, good.   
  
“Answer me,” the man hissed, his ‘R’s’ rolling with the accent. “Did you do it! Did you kill my…”  
  
Glass shattered and splintered all around them, cascading onto the ground like rain from three sides of the warehouse and Tristan used the moment of distraction to bring his feet up and kick the interrogator in the stomach, knocking the gun out of his hands. The gun flew through the air, long enough for Tristan to shed the thick ropes that had been binding him and grab it as he twisted and landed behind-first on the table, shooting, reloading, and then shooting the two henchmen behind him.   
  
He hopped to his feet and turned smoothly to find Gawain with the interrogator at swordpoint, Galahad playing with his newest toys – a twin set of small daggers, engraved, apparently from Singapore – as he kept one of the guards on the ground with his boot. Dagonet simply strolled in the front door, smoking a cigarette.   
  
Tristan chuckled to himself.  
  
“Kill him,” Tristan pointed to the guard with the gun, watching with great interest as Galahad took to straddling the man and slashing the man’s chest with…well, now that was interesting. Galahad was slashing him with the telltale mark of another serial killer, one they had been paid by the police force to bring down, through whatever manner possible. “Aren’t you a smart little thing,” Tristan praised. “When did that happen?”  
  
“Shut up,” Galahad scoffed. “I’m smart, you know, I…”  
  
“Arthur told him to do it,” Dagonet interrupted gently, heading over to Tristan’s side and holding out the cigarette for him to take a drag. “He’s been in the office for consultations since you’ve been gone.”  
  
“He wore jeans,” Gawain reported delightedly, nudging the tip of his sword into the interrogator’s neck. “Don’t move. If you move, I have to kill you.” He smirked coldly before turning to Tristan. “And this one, what do you want to do with this one?”  
  
Tristan took the last drag and glanced back over his shoulder at the dusty rags in the corner. “The brig,” he announced. “We’ve been wanting to test her out, so why don’t we have a christening?” he asked, arching one eyebrow. He glanced to Dagonet, then to Galahad and Gawain. “Take them, drive out of here. Fast.”   
  
“Clean sweep?” Dagonet commented evenly. Tristan simply nodded and watched them hurry out the door, Galahad and Dagonet bickering along the way over who got to drive and Galahad seemed to finally concede defeat when Gawain promised that Galahad could tie up their prisoner and give him a few marks.   
  
The door clanged shut and Tristan regarded the bodies on the ground. The bodies full of his DNA, no doubt. He’d been in that warehouse for two days now, there was no end to the hairs they might have gotten on their skin, the saliva from Tristan’s spitting. He dug through his pockets for a fresh cigarette and lit it up, taking a good drag – no use in utterly wasting a cigarette – before flicking it to the rags, covered in paint, oil, and Gods only knew what other flammable material it contained. Tristan grinned maniacally as orange flames burst into existence from the dead of night. He watched them flicker and felt the rush of heat wash over his skin as he stared at his creation.  
  
“Clean sweep,” he whispered, turning and walking out the front door as explosions echoed in his ears.   
  
He grinned to himself as he slipped into the woods, knowing that unless he wanted to be found, he wouldn’t be.   
  
One step closer.   
  
1.   
  
“Fuck,” Galahad swore, blinking hard. “Fuck, no, that’s not  _fair_! Gawain! No!” He protested, crawling atop the table and over to Gawain, stealing back the bottle of beer. “I have not had enough! I know when I have had enough and I have not…h-had…”  
  
“You started the party without me,” Tristan said evenly, letting the door close firmly behind him. It had been locked, but he had remedied that. “I’m disappointed.”  
  
“Tristan,” Vanora chastised, hurrying to his side. “Look at you,” she bemoaned. “Come on, into the back, you’ve got glass all over your face and your jaw’s dislocated, love, doesn’t that hurt?” Tristan just gave her an amused smirk. “And honestly, you’ve got blood everywhere and anywhere!” As if to spite her, Tristan pulled Vanora into a warm hug, staining her new white blouse with blood. She eased away and smacked him hard. “No more free drinks for the likes of you,” she warned, pointing her finger at him and giving him another smack on the face to think about before hurrying to the back for rags, clean clothes, and a bucket of antiseptic. If worse came to worse, they could pour it over Tristan’s head.   
  
Tristan grasped the cloth that Vanora held out to him, cleaning up his face and taking the new clothes, stripping right then and there. It was three AM, there were no customers left.  
  
“Hey!” Lancelot protested.  
  
Gawain scowled. “Oh, come on!”  
  
“Didn’t need to see that,” Lancelot muttered, taking a longer-than-necessary sip of ale.  
  
Galahad just giggled from his place in Gawain’s lap – the pup was obviously five sheets to the wind by the looks of the table (namely the remnants of tequila bottles, beers, other dead soldiers in brave glass bottles). And with Galahad, you never knew if there were drugs involved. “Take it off,” he wolf-whistled for Tristan, beaming at him when Tristan just winked back.   
  
He turned about and changed quickly, patting at his neck and removing day-old stains of blood from his skin as he nudged his way into the booth beside Lancelot.   
  
Vanora stepped out and stole away Galahad’s beer bottle, resulting in him whining audibly. “You’ve had enough,” she said sharply. “Besides, you’re moving boxes tomorrow, you can’t do that on a hangover!”  
  
Tristan glanced over, more confused than before. He had only been gone for two days, but two days in his life could be eternity or damnation depending on the current events. “Moving where?” he inquired. “Finally realize that you two can’t live together anymore?”  
  
Gawain smirked, stroking Galahad’s curls as he slowly seemed to be passing out thanks to the alcohol. “We’re moving into a bigger place, Tristan, that’s all. Galahad’s weapons collection alone is beginning to get a bit cluttered in the flat. The new place is amazing, we’re turning the spare room into a training room.”  
  
“Sex room,” Lancelot coughed.   
  
Gawain glared and leaned forward, smacking him in the back of the head, leading Galahad to dissolve into riotous giggles. Dagonet rolled his eyes and went back to measuring his drink, turning to glance to Vanora. “Where’s Bors?” he asked, concerned. Actually, Tristan turned, that was a matter of concern. The man hadn’t really been around much at all.   
  
“He had a client,” Vanora replied smoothly.   
  
Tristan and Dagonet exchanged a look. For one, Bors never had clients of his own, not since he had retired with the birth of the last child. Secondly, Vanora was never smooth in her answers like that. Sarcastic and snappish, yes. Smooth and nonchalant? Never. Dagonet shifted out of the booth and Tristan followed – as did Lancelot, not out of concern, but probably an effort to get away from Galahad and Gawain, who had fallen into their typical routine of making out rather loudly.   
  
“Vanora,” Dagonet prodded gently. “What’s going on?”  
  
Vanora turned easily and gave them all a  _Look_. “Nothing, boys, get back to your drinking already, would you?” She had that feel to her though, that something was wrong. Maybe it was because here she was at three AM and babysitting the Knights, when really, they were fine on their own.   
  
Vanora was one of a kind, a spitfire in her own right with a temper you never wanted to rile and a bad side you prayed you wouldn’t be on. As a woman, she was curved in all the right places and Tristan enjoyed buying her the latest silks and fabrics, Lancelot enjoyed buying her skin-tight apparel, and Bors enjoyed buying her nothing at all. Her eyes were beautiful and her skin was beautiful, but she was vehemently off-limits. Her hair appeared to be carefully manufactured to be that colour, but as Bors would tell anyone and anything that moved, ‘it definitely is natural’ with a grin and a smirk. She had a slap to be reckoned with and a way of making herself into everyone’s mother, whether they wanted it or not. And she was Bors’. Until the very end, she was his and his alone and they knew that, even Dagonet, who got the closest glimpse of what it would be like to have her, this fiery angel as his own.   
  
“What is wrong?” Dagonet repeated gently.   
  
Vanora bit her lip – crimson with the lipstick she’d put on – and looked to the three of them. “Lancelot, get the wine, Tristan, smack the lovers. I think we need to talk.” She turned and made her way behind the bar, laying out glasses and wine as red as her lips on the counter as Tristan yanked Galahad forcibly off Gawain without a word and dragged him along to the bar to the annoying sound of the both of them protesting loudly.   
  
Vanora poured the glasses with efficiency that years of practice had given her and Tristan had always admired her for that. She knew how to get a job done, just like her Bors. Tristan toyed with his glass. “We need money,” she confessed immediately, leading the group of them over to one of the larger booths in the back, framed with oak wood and burgundy leather.   
  
Galahad and Gawain were behaving, sitting hip-to-hip, sharing a large jug of wine between the two of them. Everyone was on edge.   
  
Lancelot was the one to finally speak. “Money? Bors retired with a good chunk, you should have been fine.”  
  
“Should have been,” Vanora confirmed. “But we’re not.” She sighed, sitting back in the booth and staring up at the ceiling. “If I only knew what was coming, I would have saved more, spent less on this place. We just refurbished, you know?”  
  
“What’s gone wrong?” Dagonet asked, cutting to the chase as always.   
  
Vanora met his eyes. “Our third. He’s sick.”  
  
“How sick?” Tristan demanded.  
  
“Cancer.”  
  
Even Galahad and Gawain went silent at that, everyone staring at Vanora as though she had just announced that Bors was getting a sex change. Tristan was the first to move, sliding his shot of whiskey over to her. She gave him a grateful nod and took the shot in a single gulp, not even wincing as she wiped her lips with the back of her palm.   
  
Dagonet was the first to speak. “Well, then, we need to get you some money.”  
  
2.   
  
“One point two million American on the market,” Galahad announced and it was as though dollar signs had appeared in his eyes. Lancelot sat at the main desk, twirling back and forth in his chair, almost indecisively, watching as Galahad and Dagonet presented a dossier. Tristan was nearby and Gawain was training in the room. They were all awaiting Bors, who was due back in at any moment to give his official announcement that he would be back.  
  
Lancelot reached across for the folder that Dagonet held out for him. “What is it?”  
  
Dagonet actually smiled, an enigmatic curving of his lips. “You’ll like this.” Lancelot arched an eyebrow expectantly. “It’s the Holy Grail.” Gawain wandered back from the training room, sweating and panting, but eager to hear the remainder of the conversation.   
  
Lancelot flipped through pictures of famous paintings, famous photos, he looked through information until he came across something a bit more concrete. “Is it actually?” he asked, voice terse. “Because after the go we had with the fountain of youth…”  
  
“It was,” Tristan piped up, sharpening one of his knives. “Bors is just too old for it to make a difference anymore.” Gawain let out a bit of a laugh, but Dagonet cuffed him upside the head and it silenced him and the rest of the comments that Galahad was planning to make.   
  
Lancelot held up a sheepskin drawing of the grail. “Is this really it?” he repeated, eyes locked on Dagonet because the most trusted source of information was always Dagonet, who had a key to every door and an answer to every question. “ _The_  Holy Grail, all those stories and myths that we’ve so loosely based ourselves on?”   
  
Dagonet slowly nodded and that was all the confirmation Lancelot needed.  
  
He flipped the dossier shut and tossed it over to Galahad, already walking towards the weapons room. “Right, we’ve got a job,” he remarked. “Our former illustrious leader would approve, I believe, so…” He opened the door and gestured inside. “Tristan, research on the artifact itself, see if we can’t up the price a little.” A little devious chuckle was attached to those words. They were not, in any way, Robin Hoods and all of them were very much aware of it. There was always, always a profit to be made. “Galahad, Dagonet, stake out the museum. Gawain, check the local police, see if we’re being watched.”  
  
“And me?”   
  
Bors was standing in the doorway, tossing his leather overcoat atop Galahad and giving him a command to ‘find a place to hang it up, no wrinkles or you’ll regret it’.   
  
“Ah, Bors,” Lancelot greeted pleasantly. “Well, originally, I was going to say that you could go and kiss Vanora for me, but on second thought, you can help me convince Arthur to come back for one last round at the game.”  
  
“What?” Bors grunted. “His sticky fingers getting stickier with nothing around to steal?”  
  
“Something like.”  
  
In truth, it was that Arthur was bored. Retirement was only so fit for certain careers and occupations and it was only applicable to certain personalities. Arthur had neither the job nor the personality to make a thing like retirement stick and he spent most of his days second-guessing Lancelot, planning things for him before Lancelot could even have a chance to go over the plans. Either that or he was a complete distraction and let Lancelot get absolutely nothing done between the promises of sex, the follow-through of sex, and the discussion of more sex, most usually over a secure phone line or two. It was flattering at first to Lancelot, but after several weeks of enduring the backseat-bossing, he wanted Arthur to come out of his retirement and  _do_  something finally so he could have a bit of life back in his … well, life. This was the perfect opportunity for him. It was a reunion of sorts and Lancelot knew that Arthur wouldn’t say no, not for this kind of cause.  
  
3.  
  
“No.”   
  
Apparently, Arthur could say it far easier than Lancelot had ever suspected possible. Lancelot and Bors had gone back to Arthur’s place (which was really his and Lancelot’s, but the lease didn’t say as much) and there was their former leader in a pair of jeans and a tank, remote control in his hand and the sound of the television blaring in the background.   
  
Lancelot groaned and Bors gave him a punch in the arm. “You said this would be easy,” he accused.  
  
“I said you could help me,” he shot right back, sliding into the apartment and taking the time to press Arthur against the door and kiss him in greeting, adjusting the gun in the back of his trousers just slightly, his other hand cupping Arthur’s head with a firm grip and pulling him closer. Lancelot kissed like every kiss was going to be his last, like death was waiting around the corner for them and this might be it.   
  
He could hear Bors protesting that they ‘cut it out’, but Lancelot only took that as a sign to prolong the kiss and Bors’ suffering both.   
  
Only after he was content with the affection and Arthur’s knees seemed to be giving out did Lancelot pull away, patting Arthur on the chest and smirking up at him with such levels of confidence that would normally have to be found in three men. He signaled for Bors to follow them inside. “Lock the door,” Lancelot added, flicking on a few lights and peering around the flat. “Have you been watching nothing but old television all day?” he demanded.  
  
“For a while, there was a Doctor Who marathon,” Arthur noted dryly, clearly not impressed. “I don’t even begin to know how I tore myself away.”   
  
“And yet, you say no to my offer,” Lancelot retorted, circling around Arthur as he picked up mail and messages both.   
  
“Your offer is ridiculous,” Arthur said patiently. “Lancelot, if it was any real item for Bors, then I would have agreed because it’s Bors, but this is the Holy Grail. If nothing else, it may turn out to be a worthless cup and then what? Not to mention if this is the true piece, then it will be the most complicated heist any of us will have to pull off. Is that what you want, Bors?” Arthur demanded, a dead and even look on his face. “Jail? Death? You retired to get away from this.”  
  
“None of that matters no more,” Bors muttered. “Not when my boy is dying, all right?” His voice was raspy, hoarse from something that he would never admit to the two men. Arthur looked at him and then turned to Lancelot, who was doing his best impression of ‘Man With Pleading Eyes’.   
  
Arthur sighed, rubbing his eyes.  
  
“Come on, Arthur,” Lancelot said encouragingly. “It’s either this or you sit about and watch old reruns of shows from the seventies. And those infomercials. I’ve heard you sitting about and watching them.” Arthur shot him a glare, but Lancelot was more than immune to them at this point. “One job. And you know we’ll be more careful if you’re helping me, your illustrious leader, to call the shots.”  
  
Arthur sighed, shooting Bors a tired glance. “He had that printed up on business cards. Lancelot DuLac,” he narrated in a wry tone. “Illustrious Leader.” It got Bors to snort and Lancelot to shoot a well-deserved glare in Arthur’s direction. “I want more specifics before I consent to this job,” Arthur said, tapping his fingers on a book upon the table – which was a history book that Arthur’s mother had handed down to him years ago, a book that had been in the family for generations.   
  
“More information,” Lancelot confirmed. “Swear on it. Swear that if we find you what you want, then you will work with us.”  
  
Arthur gave Lancelot a considerate look and in the background, the television blared on with advertisements of a better life for the low, low price of nineteen pounds, ninety-nine pence. They were cheap remedies and the one they wanted was going to cost them over two million, maybe their freedom, and possibly their lives.  
  
“I swear on my faith,” Arthur offered with a solemn nod.   
  
Which was more than either Lancelot or Bors could ever hope to swear on and so, a promise was a promise and they left with quiet words of thanks to Arthur for even daring to give them such a promise.  
  
4.   
  
It spoke almost too little and too much all at once, what Tristan’s home said about him. It was stark and yet decorated efficiently, as though it had been done with a singular purpose in mind: to be as true to his character as possible without cluttering it with unnecessary objects and people. It was very much like his life, in that respect. The basement, however, was devoid of humanity.  
  
Very much like Tristan’s heart, the basement was, in that respect.   
  
In a chair, in a rickety old wooden chair, there sat a man tied with ropes. His face was dripping sweat, blood, and tears, and Tristan paced back and forth, crunching on an apple that he carved casually with his knife, studying the man, whose eyes were beady and whose mouth was scrunched up tightly, as though constantly in the habit of eating citrus fruits.   
  
“So,” Tristan began casually, giving the green apple a good chew and crouching before the man, offering him the apple before pulling it back to lick up the juice from nature’s most forbidden fruit. He smiled, cruelly, and eased back to stand and select a knife from his large table of them, laid out lovingly upon the finest silk that money could buy.  
  
He turned, studying the man and picking up another knife that better suited his personality. A nervous man deserved a knife that suited him. It wasn’t a signature to Tristan. It was a way of knives.   
  
“So,” he repeated, offering the very smallest of smiles. “How do you want to die?”   
  
The man bucked in his chair and though he wasn’t gagged, the fear of the moment seemed to choke down his throat and prevent words from escaping. Tristan offered a sympathetic smile and wasted little time in rounding the man, tugging his leather gloves tighter around his hands and pressing the knife to the man’s throat.  
  
His name was Mr. Edward Robinson. He was the former underling for the top museum’s curator in London. He’d been working for the mafia and though Lancelot had handed down ‘Do Not Kill’ orders, there was no harm in a little realism when it came to the torture. The knife dug into Edward’s skin, notching there so perfectly, creating a crevasse in the soft flesh that made Tristan’s blood rush lower.   
  
“No,” Edward spat out. “No, I won’t tell you!  _Maniac_ ,” he hissed. “Inhuman monster!”  
  
“I always receive the kindest compliments in my line of work,” Tristan observed and dug the knife in deeper, watching the first droplet of blood form, pool, and descend down his neck and Tristan was akin to a vampire in that moment, the bloodlust of death and destruction and the power to kill in his hands, all for the thirst of the kill.   
  
He shifted and tightened the ropes, moving the flat edge of the blade against Edward’s throat.   
  
“Do you know what it’s like to die?” he inquired casually, his lips by Edward’s ear and his voice was cool with the precise tones of a man who was going to tell him every physical reaction and every psychological stage. “It’s a very painful process, Edward. I’ve watched many men die. I’ve caused many deaths. All I want to know is one thing, Edward, and you won’t be the next in a long line.”   
  
Edward was trembling now and Tristan knew that this was leading up to the penultimate moment: the giving up. It was beautiful, the way it ascended in such beauty and such perfect summation of the human condition. Tristan could set music to this moment and it would be forever perfect.   
  
“What do you want to know?”  
  
The ultimate destination: information.  
  
“Tell me, Edward,” Tristan spoke, leaning forward on the old rickety chair, “about the Holy Grail.”  
  
5.   
  
It had a thickness that nothing could cut through, was Galahad’s opinion of the records room of the prestigious and dignified museum, the British Historical Institute. He swatted away dust bunnies as he sat sprawled on a creaky old desk and every few moments, Dagonet glared at him, reaching for another  _ancient_  piece of paper. Galahad was beginning to think that every single item in the entire museum had to be one-hundred years old to be admitted.  
  
This, really, should have been why they sent Bors.   
  
“Hand me that manuscript,” Dagonet ordered and Galahad rolled his eyes. If this were Gawain, he would have been childish and if this were Tristan, he would have replied with some misguided innuendo, but Dagonet had been there for Galahad when he needed him most and they owed their lives to each other, in a way. So he kept quiet and he handed over a wrinkly and yellow old sheet of paper.   
  
He sighed, for what was probably the twentieth time.  
  
He listened to the silence, the ticking of Dagonet’s Rolex, the way the dust bunnies seemed to have wings and congregate in the air and the quiet creaking of footsteps on the floor above them. There were also the muffled sounds of the bound security guard.  
  
“The nightshadow compound isn’t working,” Galahad pointed out, and it might have been complaining for the sake of complaining.  
  
“It will kick in,” Dagonet assured, flipping a page.  
  
“He’s still awake, so obviously there’s something wrong…”  
  
“It takes thirty minutes.” No names. No names were to be used while there were witnesses around.   
  
They wore their masks and Galahad’s hair was itching underneath the fabric and he wanted to take it off and that meant the security guard had to be unconscious. The bickering went back and forth until Dagonet eventually pulled his gun on Galahad and took the safety off.  
  
He didn’t even say anything. Galahad just knew immediately to drop the subject.  
  
“Fine,” he muttered underneath his breath, turning to face away from the gun aimed at his shoulder and away from Dagonet to grumpily watch the effects of the drug and to see if Tristan and Dagonet really were that good with chemicals as they swore they were. Everyone seemed to have their expertise, even if it was shared. Galahad took his pride in his driving and his aim with the sniper-shot was becoming hard to beat. Only Tristan could ever challenge him. Obviously he had none of Bors’ or Gawain’s strength, and definitely not Dagonet’s patience or raw anger, but he had his own skill-set to offer.  
  
He wouldn’t be out of a job anytime soon unless he fucked it up. And he didn’t plan on fucking it up.   
  
“He’s out,” Dagonet called over, bringing Galahad out of his thoughts.  
  
Galahad shook his head, coming back to reality. “Well. Good,” he said, hesitantly.   
  
Dagonet held out a timesheet to Galahad, who put it into a folder of information they planned on photocopying and bringing back to the room the next day, when the shift changed. “So what’s this I hear?” Dagonet asked, finally.   
  
“Hm?” Galahad was distracted and with Dagonet’s tendency to withhold words, communication between them was strained. “What’d you hear?”  
  
“There’s a new place the both of you are moving to.” With Dagonet, things were never a question. He had the confidence to turn everything (even falsities) into cold, hard truths. Galahad envied that kind of power over the English language, the way he could con anyone into something with a hard look and a few well-chosen words. There was a reason Dagonet was their front for official business and it had everything to do with the man he was. “And the wedding.”  
  
“Oh,” he realized with a dour grunt. “The fucking wedding.” Galahad had been bitching about it to everyone and he wasn’t surprised that Dagonet had heard about it. “Elaine’s getting married,” he muttered. “Mum’s making me go.”  
  
“She’s your cousin,” was Dagonet’s patient answer.  
  
“I hate weddings,” Galahad complained. “I have to sit there and I get to dress up, sure, but I have to see the family, and I’ll have to bring a date.”  
  
Dagonet stopped searching through sheets and blueprints and records of artifacts to level Galahad with a dubious look.   
  
“I can’t bring Gawain,” Galahad answered the unanswered question. “Elaine doesn’t like ‘that sort of lifestyle’,” he mimicked his cousin’s shrill voice; the one that seemed to go right with her perfectionist anal-retentive personality. “And since it’s her special day, I don’t get a say, or else she’ll beat me with the bouquet. Her words.”  
  
Dagonet seemed to nod at that, but he didn’t say a thing in reply and this was how Galahad had become accustomed to working with him. He just didn’t speak sometimes and you had to understand or else you were drifting face-down in the stream, listening to the birds chirping above.   
  
“Security systems,” Dagonet changed the topic. “Very high-tech.”  
  
They exchanged a look, the masks making it so that the only focal point was either the lips or the eyes and Galahad’s gaze drifted to the lips while Dagonet’s went to the eyes and a moment of silence lasted.   
  
“Oh, shit,” Galahad muttered.   
  
Of all the skill-sets that they had within the Knights, none of them were technological geniuses. Of course, they knew one, but it just happened to be Galahad’s second-least favourite person in all the world (least favourite being that bitch-cop, of course).   
  
Dagonet just snapped the folder shut and began to tidy up the records. “There’s no other choice right now.”  
  
“Anyone but him,” was all Galahad muttered as they untied the guard and made their way out, cleaning up the scene of all evidence that they were there in the first place as they went.   
  
6.   
  
The glasses sitting low on Galahad’s nose had a prescription that was so weak that it might as well have just been pure glass out of any old window. They were strictly cosmetic and Gawain wished to Arthur’s God that he had stepped on the things weeks back when Galahad had bought them (all five hundred and sixty pounds worth of them). It wasn’t that they were ugly, though they  _were_  unnecessary. It was that while not ugly as sin, they were distracting as hell and Gawain was fighting every last urge to wipe the library desk clean of about twenty tomes and jump Galahad, right there and then.   
  
Of course, then Arthur wouldn’t join their crusade because they wouldn’t have given him enough detail and fact, but Gawain would be sated, at least.   
  
“I hate reading,” Galahad complained as he flicked over another page, squinting at the words, not using the glasses properly, but Gawain knew that there was no reason to  _be_  using them. They were cosmetic, of course, and purely to drive Gawain to the brink of sexual madness. It was almost enough to make him snap at Galahad;  _almost_. Galahad sat back, slumping childishly in the chair while Gawain did his best to renew his vows of patience.  
  
 _I love this man_ , he said to himself.  _I will not shoot him for being an utter waste of resources no matter how good it would make me feel._  
  
Galahad did, at least, occasionally offer information. Like the moment that he leaned forward, peering over the thin rims of the black glasses to tap a page. “Here,” he offered. “It’s a history of the Grail throughout history and where it’s been. Museums, records.” He extended a sheath of papers. “And these are the debates over whether it’s actually the real thing. According to this, three museums in England are showing a supposed Holy Grail this month at the same time.”  
  
Gawain looked at Galahad, with mild distress. “So how do we know which the real one is?”  
  
“The one with the market value?” Galahad clarified, smirking as he eased back and fiddled with the glasses.  
  
Gawain nearly snatched them off, but he forced that impulse lower and lower until it was a burning desire to match the other desire he had regarding Galahad at that exact moment. “Yes, Galahad, which one?” he said, gritting his teeth.   
  
“Tristan’s finding out.”  
  
And then Galahad did something completely unforgivable. While Gawain was looking his way, Galahad slowly licked his upper lip with excruciating slowness, then the lower and then the glasses slipped just an inch down his nose and that was that; the breaking point. He leaned forward to yank Galahad up by that perfectly-pressed button down of  _silk_  and yanked him halfway over the table, sending texts and papers flying to the floor as he used his superior strength to haul Galahad through the empty library towards the men’s room in a narrow corridor by the back of the building.   
  
That was when Galahad tugged Gawain against the wall, just outside the door to the men’s room, the sign worn and tarnished from years of being pushed on and abused. “If I didn’t know any better,” Galahad remarked, with an affected naïveté, “I’d think you were trying to do something, Gawain.”  
  
That evoked a deep rumble of a laugh from Gawain, one that nearly remained trapped in his throat as he gave a sharp sound of desire, letting everything bottled come undone and spill over. “You would think that, wouldn’t you?”  
  
A sharp push and they went crashing back into the bathrooms, the doors swinging as Gawain opened the handicapped stall and yanked Galahad in, mouth descending on his neck with immediate urgency, teeth scraping up the stubble of an unshaven jaw as Galahad’s hands yanked Gawain’s trousers down and Gawain threw the glasses to the side.   
  
“Those cost a lot of money,” Galahad said, voice low and angry.  
  
Gawain liked it when Galahad got angry without the irritation and sulking. It was a side of him that he ever so rarely saw, but when it burned, it burned bright and ignited everything around him within a radius of several rooms. Their clothes were disheveled and their hair mussed and Gawain’s was falling in his face all too easily. “However will I make it up to you?” Gawain replied, voice heavily afflicted with the shallow gasps of his current condition of need and want.   
  
Galahad was already in the middle of spinning them until he was shoved up against the stall, torso pressed firmly to the lime green divisor.   
  
A pretty, pretty sight, especially from that angle.   
  
It helped that Galahad had pressed a condom into Gawain’s hand and that the ‘no touching’ rule had been so utterly dashed and never once brought into the conversation in years and that Gawain could work with such quick efficiency when it came to Galahad (a teamwork they had always had, but had never thought to apply to sex until they realized places they could get away with it with the application of quiet and quickness). Gawain yanked the tucked shirt out of Galahad’s grey slacks and yanked the tie Galahad was wearing with his free hand, pulling Galahad back so that Gawain’s lips were pressed firmly against the shell of Galahad’s ear, his pants being shoved down with his other hand.   
  
Gawain ran his thumb along the silk pattern of the black tie as he breathed heavily, Galahad leaning his head back, curls falling softly over the nape of his neck. Gawain moved his lips slowly over the back of Galahad’s neck to nip at the skin there, always marked with the contrasts of pink and red from past liaisons like their current one.   
  
Gawain shoved Galahad’s slacks to the ground, stroking himself slowly, to the rhythm of Galahad’s heavy breaths – in, out, in, out, inout, stroke up, down, repeat – and continued to murmur quiet words into Galahad’s ear, the things he wished to do to him. And all Galahad did was agree in a low, willing tone.   
  
Gawain didn’t dare let go of the tie, simply tightening his grasp around the garment and yanking it tighter as he slid into Galahad, slick enough from the spit he had coated his palm with, knowing it would hurt, but pain was an acceptable side-effect. And pain usually evoked the most beautifully broken sounds to be coaxed from Galahad’s throat and past his lips. This was no different, Gawain yanking on the tie, pushing hard into Galahad, growling, “I love you like this” as he licked up the first beads of sweat from the back of Galahad’s neck.   
  
The reply was incoherent as Galahad let out a sharp cry of his own in return, pushing back for every thrust forward that Gawain gave, every rock of his hips with every ounce of strength he possessed, knowing that Galahad would match it. Within minutes of the breakneck pace, fucking as though they wouldn’t be able to for months after this encounter, Galahad came first, having been jerking himself off with a firm hand, having swatted away Gawain’s help, insisting he keep working at Galahad’s tie.   
  
Gawain followed soon after, the climax feeling like the most relieving thing since the rain after the ten days they had gone without rain earlier that summer. He let his forehead slump against Galahad’s shoulder, releasing his tie and letting it fall back to its normal position, wrinkled and ruined.   
  
They reclothed silently, like this were a stakeout and Gawain tried to help, but was swatted away with a low, whisper of a laugh. “Stop it,” he said.   
  
Gawain opened the stall, peeking left and then right, holding up a hand when he heard voices in the narrow corridor, echoing like they hadn’t pitched their voices down.  _Ingrates_ , he thought.  _Don’t appreciate the sanctity of the library_. The little hypocrite of him was dying of laughter at Gawain’s thoughts.   
  
“Have you seen the new artifact? I wasn’t planning on seeing the exhibit at the Metropolitan,” a disinterested female voice was musing. She sounded familiar, like she was the librarian from the way up or something, but Gawain couldn’t place it. “But then I spoke with some of my higher-ups.”  
  
“What did they say?” an elderly male was asking.  
  
“Apparently, this is  _the_  Holy Grail. The one worth  _millions_.”   
  
Gawain’s eyes, were they prone to, might have lit up with dollar signs at that very moment. He yanked Galahad closer to him, but didn’t dare make another move that might give away their presence. They couldn’t be seen doing this, not when they were supposed to be unseen while doing their research.   
  
“I don’t think the Holy Grail actually exists.”  
  
“Well, I believe.”  
  
And so did Gawain.   
  
7.   
  
Arthur held an old rosary within his hands. It was burgundy, the colour of blood, and the beads were cold against his palm. The light pouring in through the stained glass windows spilled over his legs. He was waiting solemnly for Father Franks to be ready for him. In the meantime, Our Fathers were offered up to the heavens for forgiveness for the things Arthur had cause to do in the past.   
  
The line of sinners in search of penance had reduced greatly and Arthur glanced over his shoulder to find a small blue-haired lady leaving the booth, leaving the curtain open for him and he tucked his rosary into the pocket of his shirt as he entered, drawing the curtain shut behind him.  
  
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” Arthur began easily, his voice repentant and deep. “It has been five days since my last confession.”  
  
“Welcome back, Arthur,” the Father welcomed with a mildly tired sigh, though there was nothing chastising in his tone. Rather, it held a bemusement that was utterly harmless. Arthur’s expression shifted, a sly smile turning up the corners of his lips as he sat there, running the rosary beads through the slip of his thumb and his index finger. “Tell me your sins, son.”  
  
In that little wooden box contained all of Arthur’s sins and all of his downfalls, the perils of mortality and the killing of men. Those four walls held so many secrets that they might heave and sigh under the collective woes that they had absorbed from Arthur alone, never mind the multitudes of other sinners come for their penance.   
  
Arthur had a tricky situation.   
  
He couldn’t out and out tell the Father what he did. There was only so far that the privilege of taking on the sins of a man went before that man was reported to the authorities for being a killer. And the excuse that ‘everyone I’ve killed has deserved it’ never did hold up in court.   
  
“Since my last confession,” Arthur began haltingly, thinking of what he had done. There had been considerably less since he had retired. “I’ve severely doubted those I have sworn to never doubt.”  
  
“How so?”  
  
“My faith wavers,” Arthur admitted, gripping his rosary and the wood of the seat with an iron grip. “In those I have sworn to love and never doubt and I cannot help but find myself reeling in this epiphany.”  
  
“Has something in particular caused this breach in faith?” Father Franks always had a soothing tone that made Arthur feel better about coming there to find relief from the stark contrast of a world drawn in shadows and blood and the relative safety of his home-life. “Perhaps a new event?”  
  
“You know I’ve retired.”  
  
“Yes, from your… ‘tricky’ job,” Father Franks chuckled. “You never did extrapolate on what you did.”  
  
Arthur remained quiet, silence his steady companion in the hours of darkness, as he never did wish to draw unsuspecting people into his world because Plato did have it right, so many years ago. Once they realized just what the shadows on the wall were, everything changed, and not for the better. Ignorance was bliss.   
  
“Go on, Arthur.”  
  
“I’ve been asked to come out of retirement one last time and for a  _good_  cause. I believe with all my heart that the reasons behind this are just, pure, and motivated by good.” Arthur kept his gaze on the mesh that separated the man of god and the man who did the devil’s bidding. “But my faith in whether my crew is able to do this job wavers.” As did his voice, which wavered on each word in the last sentence. The words were like blasphemy simply to say. “Too much time has passed.” Aches compounded, wrinkles appeared, complacency set in. “And I cannot lose these men.”  
  
There was a long pause, a hitch in an otherwise flowing conversation.  
  
“Tell me, Arthur,” the Father mused, sounding almost content to have fallen to some conclusion. “Is it that you’re afraid they’ve lost their abilities or that you’ve lost yours? Faith in one’s self is important as well.”  
  
The beads of Arthur’s rosary slipped past the sweaty palm holding them, but Arthur said not a single word in reply to the Father’s (rather apt) words.   
  
“Two Our Father’s,” Father Franks advised. “And one act of charity involving your coworkers.” Though it was little more than acts to appease men and women who wanted to see their souls rest in some form of heaven, it set Arthur at mild ease and he gave as much of a smile as men like Arthur could ever give.   
  
He pressed his palm to the screen between him and the priest, a sign of his thanks before he rose to his feet and made his way to a pew in the back of the church, where the majesty and the breadth of the place could always conspire to take his breath away. The words of the Our Father were exhaled past his lips, breathed out reverently, each one more earnest than the last and when he finished, he rose and toyed with the car keys in his hand.   
  
The drive back to work was quiet, no news radio to appease him, no traffic reports, and not a single bar of music to accompany his thoughts.   
  
When he unlocked the door, he was met by Galahad’s shining grin and a foisted fistful of papers, all in a mess. “C’mon,” Galahad encouraged. “You’ve just missed it. We’ve got enough to get it. It’s  _real_ , Arthur. It’s really real.” A quick glance around the room proved to show much the same sentiment. Lancelot was smiling with that same devil-may-care grin and even Tristan looked eager, chomping on an apple and throwing glances to Dag every now and again. Bors, of course, was already chomping at the bit to get working and Gawain had that smug and settled look he got after a kill or a fuck.   
  
One act of charity.  
  
“Well, boys,” Arthur remarked, a slow smile appearing on his lips and showing many a laugh line from years past. “I’m in.”  
  
8.  
  
The wheels of Gareth’s chair scraped against the wood floor of the room and made Galahad wince at the noise, quite visibly so. It was enough to earn an elbow in the side from Gawain. “Ow,” Galahad hissed. Gawain didn’t seem to care, being that he was more concerned at the moment with what his brother’s answer to the question was going to be.  
  
It was no secret at all that while Galahad loved Gawain’s mother like his own (“she has the  _best_  trifle this side of the Thames”), he despised his brother and had never given a good reason for it.  
  
Gareth didn’t resemble Gawain much, beyond the colour of his hair and his eyes. He had a headset on more often than not and rather than sport a messy array of dreads, his hair fell haphazardly into his eyes, sitting at chin-length. There were scars on his face from growing up a pimply, gangly teenager and had never gone away and though Galahad might have sympathized (having been more than a little gangly himself), Gareth had spent those formative years making Galahad’s life hell and telling him that he had little place in the house. He was tall, just a mite taller than Gawain, but you might never know, as Gareth spent most of his life in front of a keyboard or a microscope. He could fix anything technological or electrical and anything online was his kingdom.   
  
“But,” Galahad had protested, one late night, “he can’t fire a gun.”  
  
“And you can’t shut your mouth,” had been Gawain’s retort.   
  
“So, let me get this straight,” Gareth was chatting, leaning back in his chair, the leather creaking and the wheels giving off a horrific whine that made Galahad wince yet again, his fingers itching to go towards his concealed weapon. “You need me. You need me to help you with your oh-so-secret job.”  
  
Gawain sighed. “It’d be a one-off, Gareth. That’s it.”  
  
“How would I be paid?”  
  
“Well enough,” Galahad snapped in retort. He was rolling his eyes and Gawain was beginning to look more than a little irritable at the entire scenario. He just wanted to come and finish this without getting any bloodshed on the floors. His mother would never let him live it down. She’d allowed him this lifestyle, provided he left it outside the front door.  _Never in my house_ , she was fond of saying.  
  
Gawain leaned over to hand a cylindrical container to Gareth. “Blueprints. We need security passes coded, the system disarmed, and an escape plan. You do it right, you get paid. You don’t…well, I’ll try and make it so you don’t disappear.” Perhaps he could appeal to Lancelot’s sense of family. The man had a sister who lived just off the Black Sea whom he hadn’t seen in almost fifteen years. Usually, bringing up family loyalty was enough to get a favour or two in the pocket.   
  
Rather than answering, Gareth was staring down Galahad, who seemed all too willing to stare right back, locked in the world’s most immature staring contest.  
  
“Oh, for…” Gawain sighed.  
  
“Would I have to work with him?” Gareth demanded.   
  
That got a derisive snort out of Galahad, almost immediately, like he was programmed to do it anytime Gareth opened his mouth (and if you compared all their prior interactions to the one that day, you might almost start to believe that). Gawain had a moment’s fear that if the two of them did end up working with each other, there would be fatalities in the vein of friendly-fire.   
  
“We’d try not to,” Gawain carefully replied. He got a doubly strong glare for even saying so much and wound up sighing. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, what do the two of you want?” he snapped.  
  
“I can’t believe we need him,” Galahad was muttering. “Dag could do it…”  
  
“No, he couldn’t,” Gareth cut him off, shoulders lifting as he sat back in his chair, giving both Galahad and Gawain a smug, superior look. “I’m the best there is and you know it. That’s why you’re here. And you’re lucky too, because I’m going to help you. And get paid for it,” he stressed, shooting Gawain a cold look. “Where and when.”  
  
“We’ll be in touch.”  
  
“Well, obviously,” Gareth rolled his eyes. “You’re still moving your things out.”  
  
How Gawain stopped himself from smacking his younger brother that moment, he never did know.   
  
9.   
  
The light was on when Tristan pulled up to the curb and glanced over to Dagonet, giving him a onceover. He pulled out a cigarette and let Dagonet light it, still cushioned by the protective leather seats of the car. “You want me to wait?” Dagonet asked as he leaned over with his lighter (a metallic thing, looking heavier than it could ever possibly weigh). Tristan eased forward, long fingers casually draping over the cigarette and taking a first drag as he weighed his options.  
  
He had been doing research; name-checks at churches and interviews with priests, museum curators, police-connections, and other criminals with less than pristine reputations. He just needed to see what the boys had discovered to add to the folio before they delivered it up to Lancelot.   
  
“No,” Tristan finally decided, exhaling a thin, smooth stream of smoke as he opened the door. “I’ll see you in the morning.” He stood on the curb, lifting a hand to Dag as he watched him drive off into the night, past the streetlamps and back home to the brats and Bors, probably to relieve Vanora of the weight of duty at her back. He glanced up and over his shoulder to see one of the rooms still illuminated by a single lamp, the orange and yellow tones flooding the room. They hadn’t yet invested in curtains, it appeared, because he could see Gawain moving towards Galahad and undressing the younger man, pushing him against the wall as he pried the wifebeater from his shoulders, mumbling something against his neck.  
  
Well, Tristan couldn’t have that.   
  
They did happen to keep their door locked, which was hardly an issue for a man who carried around a portable lockpicking set with him, always making sure to keep it in the velvet encasement of luxury as it was the top of the line. Tristan never settled for anything less than the best. The door gave way easily and on the landing of the second floor, Tristan was no more than a shadow, waiting to enter. His fingers brushed over a tattoo on his wrist, his newest; a single initial:  _D_.  
  
Bors had thought it was for Dagonet. Tristan had never corrected him.   
  
Being a new flat, the doors didn’t creak and neither did the floors as he locked up behind him and tucked the case away into his long overcoat, making sure all his guns were set to safety as he hung it up and continued to wander past the foyer, gracefully striding past boxes and ducking anything in his way to the lit room, where he watched from the doorway.  
  
“…I don’t know why…” Gawain was saying, his hands firm on Galahad’s hips. Galahad was in a terrible state of undress and from that angle, everyone on the street would be able to see him standing there, solely in his boxers.   
  
“Yes, of course you do,” Galahad had snapped in return. Gawain, on the other hand, was completely clothed, serving as a contrast to all that pretty, tanned, bared skin of Galahad’s. “You  _know_  how much I despise that prick of a brother you have.”  
  
“Language, Galahad,” Tristan finally drawled.   
  
That made the entire scene freeze before his eyes and Tristan was almost amused at how his voice seemed to contain the ability to stun an act and prevent it from completing. His posture didn’t shift a single centimetre from its languid and relaxed state. And somehow, he had the feeling that Galahad would shake off the shock with ease, moving their little threesome to far more interesting countries.   
  
Gawain was the missing link at the moment.   
  
“Gawain, Tristan says I have pisspoor language,” he said, his grin broadening and getting even more irredeemable, sin living in that boy’s figure, sometimes. “Do I have to be penitent?”  
  
“Maybe get on his knees?” Tristan pitched in a helpful suggestion.  
  
Gawain’s gaze was flickering between the two of them, as though considering. Always the thoughtful one, Gawain. Finally, something seemed to click and Gawain’s face lit up with a smile of its own. “Not for you, though,” he warned Tristan, gaze heavy on him. Tristan merely lifted one hand, to signify that he wouldn’t mind whatever he got. “I think maybe that Tristan should watch.”  
  
Slowly, he turned that dark gaze back around on Galahad, which caused such a pretty little reaction, Galahad’s back slamming against the wall with an audible  _thump_  and Gawain leaned in to take advantage of that moment of weakness with a brutal kiss, his hand grabbing fistfuls of Galahad’s curly hair, hard, thumb scraping over the beard on the side of his face, no more than four days’ worth of stubble.   
  
“Do you need help?” Tristan queried, bemused.   
  
Galahad drew away from the kiss, lips brushing against Gawain’s cheek to turn a glare on Tristan, seemingly taken out of the long and intimate moment they had put on show for Tristan. “We’ve been doing this without you for four years. I think we can handle it.”  
  
That seemed to make Gawain terse, like he had lost control of the pup. “Seriously, Galahad. Shut up.”  
  
“Do it for me, why don’t you?”  
  
And the result of that was truly a sight fit for any voyeur’s eyes, the vicious kiss that Gawain laid on Galahad, pinning him against the wall, a hand to each shoulder and intent on keeping him there, no matter how much Galahad bucked up against the applied pressure. And Galahad kept trying to get out of the grip, again and again, grinning into the kiss, even as their tongues dueled and Tristan couldn’t honestly tell which of them had the control anymore, especially when Galahad managed to overpower Gawain and spin them, pressing his knee up against Gawain’s crotch, breathing hard and glancing over his shoulder at Tristan.  
  
“Is this what you think about at night?” he asked, but Tristan didn’t hear Galahad’s voice. No, rather, he heard something from a very long time ago. _“Is it me you think of at night or her? Or is it both of us?”_  all said in that lascivious tone.   
  
He tried to shake off the memory of blond hair in the moonlight, fingers pushing into red hair and instead focused on the scene before him, all curls and stubble and  _strength_.   
  
He bit his cheek, just until he could taste blood; it was enough. Enough to distract him and keep him from drifting off into a past that was no more, thinking of a woman who had changed too many times over and let bitterness make her icy, think about a man buried too long.   
  
Before he knew it, they were moving, away from the wall and into the bedroom and the boys had left the door open for him; an invitation.  _Follow us_ couldn’t have been any clearer. So Tristan did with slow and steady strides, entering the shadowlands of the bedroom, watching the way that Galahad didn’t even bother to close the blinds or the curtains and Tristan replaced them, forming a barrier between them and the world.   
  
There was only a sparse and singular sheet on the bed, which Galahad’s toes were quick to push away, their bodies writhing and already naked, clothes having fallen quickly by the wayside sometime in the last ten seconds.  
  
Not while Tristan had blinked. He never blinked. Figuratively.   
  
“Is this what it was like before,” Tristan finally spoke, as Gawain’s hand traced a pattern of five fingers down Galahad’s sweaty torso, fingers slick and intruding on Galahad’s arsehole, pushing in without much hesitation because Galahad when he writhed was all too pretty of a sight. “Look, but don’t you touch?”  
  
But he wasn’t rewarded with an answer. Though, that movement of Gawain’s hips, thrusting down into Galahad was a sight to see and he didn’t protest the currency of the evening, which seemed to be pure, unadulterated porn. If this were, in fact, the way of old, then Tristan could hardly protest what looked to be a trip into sinful territory, the touching and grabbing so firm, bruised marks shining in pale light, Gawain’s fingers making new marks as his hands clasped Galahad’s hips and yanked him forward, Galahad’s hand wrapped around Gawain’s cock, always, always pushing for more. Though this wasn’t the first time Tristan had seen the two of them in their more intimate moments (he had a quiet step and no tendency to talk about these types of things), this was the first time in some months and they had gained rhythm and grace since. As much as they fought against each other (Galahad’s hand scratching down Gawain’s torso, the occasional buck that nearly threw Galahad off), there was cohesion and cooperation.   
  
It was difficult to deny that they were a couple now. Better together than apart, at least when it came to the acts of the bedroom.   
  
Though it was difficult, Tristan managed to not participate beyond a shifting of his hips forward against his trousers, the friction of the silk pants pushing against his straining erection. He could control himself. And if he couldn’t, he could wait.  
  
But Galahad couldn’t, not from the look of pure ecstasy flickering across his face, splintered and ecstatic. And soon after that, Gawain tumbled after him, rolling them on the bed until the sheets and pillows had fallen onto a polished wood floor and Tristan was still watching the whole thing with an unmoving gaze. He picked up the folder of information on his way, lifting it without a single sound and rifling through it while the boys finished up, panting and gasping heavily for air.   
  
But before there could be things like small talk, Tristan had slipped out from the room, a hand momentarily brushing over his cock as he drew out his mobile, leaning against the foyer as he dialed up Lancelot.   
  
“We’re ready to go. Set the plan in motion.”  
  
And once more, Tristan disappeared into the shadows of the street.   
  
10.   
  
There were lamps flying at headquarters which could only mean one thing. They had decided to redecorate or Isolde was visiting. Tristan wasn’t about to keep her in check and so, her temper flared up.  
  
She was a feisty woman whose heart had slowly iced over. Her hair burned as red as Vanora’s, but there was no warmth left in her face. Since Dinidan’s death, every wrinkle had cemented and every bit of iciness had only strengthened, forming new walls that prevented anyone from getting inside. She wore a rosary around her wrist as a bracelet and she often slipped into private conversations with Arthur for what the others could only assume was a form of confession (but still drove Lancelot to mad jealousy). Her clothes fit perfectly, though her posture was never perfect and she was pale. Too pale, as though she had not stopped grieving. Years had passed, but Isolde began to dwindle away, and not even Tristan could stop that. Her constant trips to Ireland were to make her feel alive again, but too often, they did nothing for her.   
  
And now, she was throwing a lamp straight at the wall to punctuate a point.  
  
“Seduce a  _guard_?” she snarled. “What do you think I am, Lancelot. Bait? A toy? A little puppy you give orders to?”  
  
“Jesus shit, Isolde,” Lancelot snapped (as Galahad and Gawain getting ready in the background for the wedding, which Isolde was also dressed for). “Could you be a little more of a bitch?”  
  
“Don’t take His name in vain,” she warned with a perfectly manicured finger shoved against Lancelot’s chest. “And why! Why would you think I’d do this?” Gawain was rolling his eyes as he fidgeted with Galahad’s bowtie, ignoring the way that Galahad was moving his fingers up and down the inseam of Gawain’s trousers. “Oh, hands off the goods, Galahad,” she snapped over her shoulder.  
  
“Maybe,” Vanora piped up, smoothing a hand over her blue dress. “You’d do it for me? And our children?”  
  
That seemed to get a pause from Isolde, though not a terribly long one. She had never been persuaded in the past to do anything for children. “One guard,” she finally said to Lancelot, holding up a single finger. “ _One_.”  
  
“Are we ready to get this travesty over with?” Galahad asked, twirling his keys around on his finger, looking for all the world like he’d rather be taken out back and shot rather than attend the actual wedding with a fake-date. Gawain trailed him, vaguely bemused as he extended an arm to Vanora (for all effects and purposes, ‘picking’ her).   
  
Which left Isolde for Galahad. It was almost too perfect, given both their explosive personalities.   
  
It was  _almost_  enough to make a man laugh.  
  
The wedding itself had been a quiet event in a chapel rife with history, the stained glass painting colourful patterns over the pews and Galahad seemed to spend the entire service tracing his pinky over them, adjusting and coughing (which disrupted the service, but also annoyed Elaine to the point of glares, which Gawain would surmise was the point of such a thing). He hid a smile behind his palm when Galahad continued, oblivious to any rancor that he was stirring up and Vanora had to elbow him in the ribs to prevent him from actually laughing aloud. None of their party seemed happy, not for a moment.   
  
That changed when the wedding was over and the reception began thanks to two of the most glorious words in the history of Britain:  _open bar_.   
  
Somewhere along the way, past clichéd dances and Galahad being accosted by aunts and uncles, Gawain had lost track of his erstwhile companion and wanted to check on him. He had put up such a fuss about attending the wedding and to that very second, Gawain still had no earthly idea as to the real reason why, besides, ‘I hate weddings’.  
  
Gawain wandered out of the hall and back into the golden wash of the foyer, decorated by the blinding light of the massive chandelier; at least five hundred crystals aglow with light, shining on the ceramic tiles of the floor and the wall. Galahad was sitting with legs parted on a bench, staring into space. The doors to the hall closed behind Gawain and the tinny strains of music turned to silence.  
  
Gawain took a seat on a bench a few feet from Galahad and simply stared off into the same direction as Galahad.   
  
“Too much?” Gawain asked quietly.  
  
Galahad merely said, “Isolde,” by way of explanation.  
  
Gawain paused. “Yeah.” Another pause. “She can be a bit much.”  
  
Galahad sighed heavily. “My little brat of a cousin just got married. She’s so young. And such a brat. But a young brat.” Gawain chanced a look at him, but he wasn’t looking back, still looking forward and looking older than he had in years.  
  
“You’re not so old,” Gawain protested.   
  
Galahad finally turned and graced Gawain with a truly unflattering smirk. “I’m twenty-seven,” he said the number like it was a disease to be ignored. “Almost thirty. My little cousin just got married,” he repeated. “She’s got someone for forever.”  
  
There was a pause. If Gawain weren’t trying so hard to avoid familial thoughts, he would have called it a pregnant pause.  
  
“Is that what you want?” Gawain asked quietly.  
  
Galahad shook his head, looking anywhere but at Gawain. He stared forward again as he folded his hands into his lap and let out another heavy sigh, as though the weight of the world was resting on the shoulders of his expensive Armani jacket. “Don’t ask me,” he scoffed. “Please.”  
  
“I won’t,” Gawain promised. He slowly stood up, brushing his hands on his trousers – borrowed from Arthur as he didn’t have anything nicer than a pair of slacks that were currently ruined from his and Galahad’s last attempt at a fancy dinner. “C’mon. On your feet.”  
  
“What?” Galahad scowled.   
  
Gawain moved in front of Galahad, holding out one hand. “Up. Stand. Let’s go.”  
  
Galahad stood slowly. “This is silly,” he muttered.  
  
“You don’t even know what I want,” Gawain commented incredulously, amazed that Galahad could find fault when he didn’t even know what was going on. He took Galahad’s hand and tugged him away from the seats, into the empty foyer. All the guests were in the hall for the wedding, enjoying the happiness. “Come here,” he beckoned softly, tugging Galahad into his arms, placing one hand at the small of Galahad’s back and urging him to curl in closer.   
  
Galahad rested his cheek against Gawain’s shoulder as they simply stood there.  
  
“Dance with me,” Gawain asked quietly.   
  
“No music,” Galahad argued.  
  
Gawain tugged Galahad with him to the door, propping it open just the smallest bit with a doorstop before he guided Galahad back to the centre of the foyer, standing beneath the brilliantly bright chandelier, swaying slowly at first until Galahad sighed and began to move a little more, tightening his hold on Gawain.   
  
“She was named for my Aunt,” Galahad muttered, destroying yet another lovely, silent moment. “Vain, isn’t it?”  
  
“With your family, I’ve come to expect vanity.”  
  
“Prick.”  
  
“Brat.”  
  
11.   
  
Tristan had been on his mobile for four hours straight, speaking to an antiquities dealer in the shadier parts of a small town two hours outside of London. The man was in his sixties and for his entire life had been collecting Arthurian Legends, remnants of an era long past, of a myth born from real life. He had made the drive up there through the rainy moors, lurking about the shadows of the shop and touching the chalices that the true King Arthur had supposedly drank from.  
  
“What about the Holy Grail?” Tristan had asked. “What truth is in that?”  
  
The man was creaky and old, but he seemed to have life in his eyes. Tristan hoped he wouldn’t have the kill the man for being ornery or unhelpful. That would be decidedly unpleasant. “Ah yes. The Holy Grail. Do you know, it’s going on display soon. I tried to get it into my possession, but ah…the money…”  
  
“Rather rich for our blood,” Tristan agreed, playing the part of the agreeable young man. “The Grail?”  
  
“You see,” the man was shuffling about the shop, holding his tea possessively to him, as though to ward off evil spirits. “I’ve spent my life researching the thing. That and Excalibur, of course. But the thing about the Holy Grail is that its regenerative properties…never tested, not properly.”  
  
“Why not?” Tristan demanded. “Surely people have tried.”  
  
“Not with the correct rituals, m’boy,” the man chastised with a quiet laugh. There was something of an Irish brogue lost in his dialect, long beat out, but Tristan had a good ear for anything, whether it be accents or the sound of a man dying or the sound of a car escaping from a battle. “There are words. Rites. Herbs and a compound to be had. With that. Well, life and death become synonymous. Healing becomes instantaneous.” The man slowly smiled, but it brought no warmth to his face.   
  
Tristan liked this man.  
  
“You could possess the secret of life in your hands,” he said, with a simple nod.   
  
Tristan had left with heavy thoughts and rather than going home to his own place (where he had someone tied up in his very special ‘chamber’, someone who was going to give him the floor plans to the museum by the end of it), he went to Dagonet’s, knocking heavily on the door.  
  
“Dag?” He knocked again, fingers brushing against the door. “You in?” Half the time, he was attached at the hip of Bors and Vanora anyway and he knew he was pushing his luck, but Tristan always did have a lucky streak to him.  
  
That was exactly what he thought when the door was opened slowly by Dagonet, standing there only in a pair of sweats, water rolling down his neck, a bit of a cut on his cheek from shaving. It was enough to make Tristan be very, very grateful for his timing. Rather than pushing his way inside, however, Tristan lingered and waited for the proper invitation.  
  
Society had its place somewhere; even with a brute like him.   
  
“I wasn’t expecting you,” Dagonet admitted evenly. Silence took over between the two of them as neither man was so much verbose as laconic to the last and they preferred the way that silence blanketed their conversations. With too many words, you gave too much away. With none, you held onto all your gambits. “Come in?”  
  
With an invitation, Tristan felt free to stride into the flat like he owned the place. He was there twice a week as it was and he knew where each little knick-knack went, knew when something was out of place, and most importantly, he knew his way around. He plucked off his expensive leather gloves slowly, a cursory glance going around the four walls to see if anything had changed since the last time he had been over. There was music playing in the background and the dripping faucet of the shower, which went along with Dag’s current appearance.  
  
“Are you going out?” Tristan asked, voice quiet and careful. Every aspect of Tristan’s life seemed a chess game, at times.   
  
“I could stay.”  
  
Off to Bors and Vanora’s again, it sounded like. Tristan had simply been at the right place at the right time to prevent that plan from coming to fruition. He had a habit of always stumbling out a tight space with room to spare. But then, he was Tristan. He just aimed. He turned to make sure that Dagonet was following him before he made it into the darkened bedroom.   
  
“I spoke, tonight, with a scholar,” Tristan recounted, fingers brushing against the coverlet of dark green, the colour of the forest. He wasted no time in dismissing his tie and his button down, giving a look to Dagonet that said he was expected to follow. It was a wordless agreement they had by now, these encounters. They were typically wordless and they could serve as whatever each of them wanted.  
  
Tonight, Tristan wanted to be able to close his eyes and imagine someone else with him; someone that Dagonet knew and was a substitute for, more than adequate, too.   
  
Dagonet knew how to arouse Tristan in much the same ways as Dinidan did, the precise place to touch without being sloppy, arousal by precision which got Tristan off far more than anyone else knew. Tristan had instructed Dagonet on exactly what to do many, many years ago and Dagonet had never asked why.  
  
When you’re personifying the ghost of a dead lover, it was best not to ever ask.  
  
And tonight, Dagonet was in perfect form, kissing Tristan on the neck and the collarbone, not gentle in the least, but rough with precise touches, large hands pushing over his cock and tearing his clothes off. He never said a word, knowing that the slightest bit of speech might throw Tristan out of it. In the dark of the night, in Dagonet’s dim bedroom, Tristan could honestly close his eyes and pretend it was ten years ago and Dinidan was still alive.  
  
 _Never forget this, bastard, or I’ll haunt you_ , Dinidan had whispered in a hiss one night.   
  
True to his word, Tristan hadn’t forgot, and if this was how he was preserving Dinidan’s memory, then so be it. Dagonet had prepared the both of them while Tristan was drifting off into memories, writhing slowly on the bed and not once daring to open his eyes. He had to keep them shut, had to keep the image clear as he could or else it would fade and forever leave him. The fuck was quick and hard, Dagonet pushing in, pushing harder, grunting and pushing and the way it felt was so unreal that Tristan couldn’t help but start laughing as everything built up more and more, until the pressure was so incredible that he was going to burst as he laughed, a choking and dark sound.  
  
Maybe he wasn’t about to forget, but he was haunted anyway.  
  
 _Not for much longer._  
  
He couldn’t take it. Tristan couldn’t take it and he opened his eyes and looked up and Dagonet was looking right back down as he pushed deeper than he had before, bringing Tristan around to the inevitable messy climax.   
  
Not for much longer would he be haunted by a dead man.  
  
Not for much longer, at all.  
  
Tristan cried out, a determined and swift sound as he crashed back onto the bed, sated and still laughing. “Dinidan,” he gasped out, gaze to the ceiling. “Dinidan,” he murmured, once more.  
  
Say Bloody Mary three times and they say she would appear for you. Say any name three times and they say that spirit will hear it.   
  
“Dinidan.”  
  
12.   
  
Lancelot had driven himself back from the meeting with the Archdiocese, tugging all the while at his collar. It all looked good and sexy, of course, until something actually had to happen with it and then the vestments were put on and they were too damn hot to be actually covert or arousing in any way.  
  
He wandered back into the flat to find Arthur going over blueprints for the museum, glasses on his face and squinting, using only a lamp.  
  
“You are going to go blind,” Lancelot announced, flicking the lights on and giving Arthur a  _Look_  as he yanked off the rosary he’d been wearing. He had, essentially, been in full priest garb from the cassock to the rosary to the vestments and to the collar. Anything for a little bit of information. In this case, he was getting information about where the Grail had been moved over the course of history. “This fucking thing. I swear, if I didn’t have this fantasy about fucking you in one of these, I’d burn it.”  
  
The reaction to that was wholly worth it though, because Arthur was gaping at Lancelot, not a care in the world paid to the architecture any longer. “I can’t begin to explain the ways this is blasphemous.”  
  
Blasphemous was definitely a direction that Lancelot could approve of, especially at that given moment. “Care to blaspheme a little more?” he suggested lasciviously, lifting his foot to the nearest chair and showing off just enough leg to be suggestive. “Just call me Father Lancelot.”  
  
There was a groan coming from Arthur, but Lancelot couldn’t see him because Arthur had gone and planted his forehead on the table. As though _frustrated_. Really. “Oh, God,” Arthur pleaded. “Take that off now.”  
  
“And here I thought you’d want to do that for me,” he teased, his smug grin only getting wider and wider.  
  
“What did you find out?” Arthur inquired, patient down to the very last syllable as he managed to lift his head from the table and give Lancelot an enduring look, not once flinching or letting his eyes slip to more private areas. Maybe Lancelot hadn’t given his erstwhile boyfriend enough credit when it came to his ability to hold out on a dirty fantasy here and there.   
  
“The Grail has been moved around since the time of the great King Arthur himself,” Lancelot reported. “This is believed to be the one at the Last Supper, the one that…” Lancelot sighed, rolling his eyes. “The Pure Galahad,” he continued, gritting his teeth. It was always so very difficult to get those words out. “The very one he found after preparing himself spiritually.” Which really, was more in Arthur’s league, but Lancelot said not a word, simply plucked the collar out from the vestments as he wandered closer to Arthur, just in case the other man did want to undress him. “Of course, half the world thinks the thing doesn’t actually exist.”  
  
“So what if this isn’t the real thing?” Arthur queried, fingers running up the dark fabric.  
  
“Ah, here’s the beautiful part,” Lancelot confirmed, pleased that Arthur seemed to be overcoming his little ‘faith issues’. “There’s so much mythology attached to  _this_  Grail in particular that real or not, the price tag is magnificently large.” It was enough to be a dream come true, an item they could steal and sell for anything so long as they talked enough about it. “We’ve had Gareth already start to establish more of a buzz about this particular Grail, just in case. He’s having some conversations on the net about it with others, and a few doubles of himself.” He let his gaze fall to watch the way Arthur touched the cloth, so tentatively. “Should I take this off, Arthur,” he offered. “I’d hate to scar you to the point that we couldn’t ever have sex again.”  
  
There was an exhalation of relief, as though those had been  _just_  the words that Arthur was waiting for. “Yes. Yes, please take it off, Lancelot.”  
  
“Ah.” It was a simple little remark, but it was fraught with self-indulgence and assurance. “Begging. And here I thought the night would be wasted.”  
  
Arthur slowly began to roll up the blueprints (lest they be wrinkled, Lancelot would roll his eyes from now until his grave about Arthur’s fastidious nature) and all the while he tidied, he never once took his eyes off of Lancelot. He nodded, just barely, towards the bedroom, which Lancelot took to mean as a sign that he should get there and begin to ‘prepare’, as he would call it.   
  
In this case, it meant ridding himself of the vestiges of faith so that Arthur wouldn’t have a complete crisis.   
  
“You know, I have no idea whether to side with Galahad or Gareth in this damn little snitfit of theirs,” Lancelot began conversationally as he flicked the priest’s collar out from under his shirt. “They’re both completely snotty fucking brats.”  
  
“The sign you’ve matured,” Arthur noted, sliding an elastic band around the blueprints. “They’re not getting any younger…”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, I’m just getting older,” Lancelot said with a roll of his eyes, tossing off the robes onto the nearest chair and intentionally making a mess of them, just to see what Arthur would do in the situation, whether he would choose to clean the mess or whether he would attend to the more _pressing_  matter at hand, if you would. He glanced over the black fabric of his button-down to see what Arthur was doing, smiling smugly to himself when the other man began to walk towards the bedroom. “I hardly think God will notice one more black mark…”  
  
He was stopped when Arthur came closer and splayed his hand out on Lancelot’s chest, centred on his heart. “I cannot help but wish to avoid this in confession,” he spoke, voice heavily quiet.   
  
“And here I thought you weren’t going to confession anymore.” Lancelot’s eyes were kept lower, to watch Arthur’s weathered hands slowly unbuttoning each button on his shirt, each one revealing a new, wider triangle of pale skin (how very British they were, at times). “I thought we’d booked you a psychiatrist.”  
  
“I don’t like him,” Arthur said, words heavy.   
  
“Arthur, you hardly like anyone that we haven’t vetted for you,” Lancelot pointed out, his words heavy as he kept watch on the way that Arthur’s broad hands pushed the shirt off completely, leaving Lancelot solely with the task of removing his trousers and boxers.  
  
Slowly, Arthur angled his hips to cover Lancelot’s and he walked him back towards the bed with slow, careful steps that were measured with that steady passion that Arthur tended to always have burning just beneath the surface. It was part and parcel of why Lancelot loved him so; he never knew when Arthur might explode and it would all come spilling out, an unpredictable showing of lust, wrath, all the sins that made life worth living.   
  
Lancelot fell to the bed first, bare skin hitting the smooth sheets that were cleaned on a bi-weekly basis and the trousers had begun to slip, showing that scant hint of hipbone. Arthur was making quick work of that, however, pushing the trousers down while assaulting Lancelot’s neck with swift kisses; firm, finding their mark, planned and careful.   
  
But just behind that sheen of control, Lancelot could sense that something about the evening had put Arthur on edge. There was just the slightest glimmer, just the  _barest_  hint that Arthur didn’t have full control of everything. It was an edge in each kiss, a slip in the teeth, the way Arthur hissed and gasped, the way he moved (harder than usual).   
  
It was, Lancelot thought, intoxicating.   
  
Once on the bed, Lancelot’s world slowly came into perfect focus; narrowly so. Like a camera lens focusing on the picture, the only thing that Lancelot was keenly aware of was Arthur above him, Arthur’s hands beside him, the sheets and pillows behind him and the predictable outcome of the evening before him. Sometimes, knowing the future did little to dampen the fun of the present. Now was one of those times.   
  
They rolled on the bed, a primitive struggle for dominance and one that was fought simply out of habit (Arthur’s hand pinning Lancelot’s torso to the bed, the wrestling of limbs to get atop, the constant rolling and then rolling back, the  _need_  inherent in all the groping and the struggling). Eventually, it ended as all their struggles did, with Arthur on top.   
  
That seemed to be the position that worked best for them and it was the one that Arthur seemed to enjoy the most, from the slow and settled smile that spread across his face. “You really have no idea how good you look from up here,” was Arthur’s evaluation as he dug out the small, travel-sized contained of lube from the nightstand. While Lancelot was without clothes completely, Arthur still had far too many on (his boxers, his shirt, and his tie, not to mention his glasses).   
  
“Get those damn pants off,” Lancelot hissed.  
  
“The rest?”  
  
“No. Leave the rest on.”  
  
Arthur’s brow slowly cocked upwards as a sure smirk happened upon his lips. “Really?” That single word was drawn out, as though Lancelot’s request had been the key to a locked door hiding a closet of hidden kinks and facets.   
  
Instead of words, Lancelot decided to move the night along to the more physical aspects that could be found and helped Arthur to get his pants around his knees before latching his gaze on the lube. “I am far more interested in what you’re holding than whatever little mental superiority kink you’re currently experiencing,” Lancelot announced, lifting his chin in a defiant gesture.   
  
Arthur laughed at that (the warm chuckle that filled Lancelot with a sense of safety and love, the one that put all the dangers aside and reminded Lancelot of just why he wanted to be there with Arthur, by his side). He spent a long moment slicking up his fingers as he shifted downwards to slowly push two fingers inside of Lancelot, his strokes slow and careful, crooking every now and then in a rhythm that was, by now, practiced and perfected.   
  
Nothing Arthur did was ever anything less.   
  
Lancelot focused on his breathing, keeping it together and keeping from losing himself far too early in the process. It was all too easy to drift away from looking at Arthur (the glint of the lamp flashing off his glasses or the way the tie swayed as he pushed his fingers another fraction of an inch deeper inside of him). His heels dug further into the sheets, his cock hard, his blood pumping through his body to remind him that he was alive, which was something that was all too easy to forget when you worked in the line of work that they did.  
  
“Lancelot.  _Mine_ ,” Arthur exhaled, soft and serious. His words caused Lancelot’s breath to hitch in his throat, that level of possessiveness settling him while (at the very same time) arousing him to a new level. Arthur’s words of claim were then replaced by a more pressing claim; a physical one. Arthur slowly pushed himself in, hands spreading Lancelot’s knees as far as they would go and he surged forward with the first thrust.   
  
And then Lancelot did begin to lose his control, from his breath to his voice, right down to his body. He spasmed, cried out, his heart doubled in time when it should have beaten only once, he moved in tandem with Arthur’s thrusts and the strokes of his cock that Arthur’s hand (calloused and familiar fingers) offered.   
  
Lancelot breathed heavily as he always watched Arthur and was always careful to make sure he was enjoying himself as much as Lancelot was and the noises they had never matched, were always discordant and somehow harmonic at once. Even now, they fought for dominance as Lancelot gathered the strength to roll them over and push down while Arthur switched to thrusting upwards and just when he was settled in that rhythm, Lancelot would roll them back again. The king bed did provide for a large playground.   
  
The sweat began to make Arthur’s white-shirt transparent in places as they continued and Lancelot grabbed hold of the tie to yank him down for a lengthy and deep kiss as Arthur pushed in to the hilt, deeper than he had yet that evening. The moans were muffled against lips and Lancelot’s fingers on Arthur’s tie began to slowly slip as the inevitable came.  
  
Lancelot’s climax was almost soundless but for the gasp of breath and the strangled moan that escaped his throat. “God,” he gasped, when his breath came back to him and he could feel Arthur’s rhythm disturbed. He was slowing down, as if he was struggling. “Arthur,” Lancelot murmured, still breathless. “Arthur…”  
  
Before he could even beg for it, Arthur came as he shouted Lancelot’s name up to the ceiling.   
  
“Dear god,” Lancelot laughed as Arthur collapsed atop him and let out a weary groan. “Apparently I should blaspheme more,” he said, words sticking together. “The consequences are magnificent.”   
  
13.   
  
There was a lot of talk of keys going on at headquarters. Gareth wouldn’t stop tapping on the keys of the computer as he set up a mock program of the security systems installed at the museum. At the same time, Galahad and Gawain weren’t very far away with a set of keys themselves, the sort that any old security guard might carry around.  
  
“It’s a digital age, you know,” Gareth said, enraptured in his typing. “No guard is going to carry keys like those. It’s all keycards and retina scans.” He held up a blank card. “Like this.”  
  
Galahad rolled his eyes and wandered over to snatch the card from Gareth’s hands, mimicking his ‘like this’ in a high-pitched tone. “Aren’t you supposed to be  _doing_  something, like, I don’t know, making sure we don’t get caught?” He passed the blank card to Gawain, who slipped it into the brown leather wallet he kept with him, tucking it into the inside breast pocket of his brown leather coat.   
  
“All right, let’s get back to work,” Gawain implored, the voice of sanity and reason in a room otherwise without it.   
  
Galahad grinned to himself as he wiggled his fingers, circling Gawain and cracking his neck back and forth, a violent sound of bones shifting, but nothing appearing changed on the outside. Gawain just laughed as he stood there with his coat sitting perfectly on his shoulders – he straightened it, maybe he’d start wearing this around town, it looked good on him – and tipped his head to the ceiling.  
  
“We haven’t got all day,” Gawain chastised lightly, smirking at Galahad as the other man rounded him, never stopping.  
  
“I know,” Galahad replied casually with a shrug, collapsing down onto the couch and tossing the wallet back into Gawain’s hands.  
  
Gawain blinked.  
  
“You…” He stared down at the brown leather he was cupping between both hands. Frantically, he checked his pocket to find it empty – for a moment, wondering if maybe Galahad had bought a double, just to impress him. Gawain wouldn’t put it past him. He stormed over and picked up the wallet. “I thought you were ‘just okay’ at this,” he mimicked Galahad from the night before in bed – not just any bed, but  _their_  bed at  _their_  new townhouse with _their_  car sitting in the drive outside of it.  
  
Oh, God, they were going domestic.   
  
“Yeah, I wanted to surprise you,” Galahad grinned, taking the wallet back and rifling through, giving a scoff when there was no paper money to be found. “Besides, if I said that I was really good, you’d start getting suspicious about all those times you uh, lost your things.”  
  
Gawain narrowed his eyes.   
  
“Oops?” Galahad asked innocently.   
  
Gawain glared sternly. “We’ll have a talk later.” He settled onto the couch and stole the wallet back, idly thumbing through it and all forms of false identification he kept on him. “You know, I was kind of hoping you’d be terrible at this. You know, that way you might wind up groping me a little as you got better.”  
  
“I am trying to work,” Gareth complained with something of a defeated whine.   
  
He resembled Gawain in many ways, but the maturity that graced Gawain (and often kept Galahad in line) had yet to settle into Gareth and he was still rough around the edges, though in many ways he had a leg-up on Gawain, who was never one for book-smarts or technology and far preferred blunt force, whether it be with a weapon or with his charm. They shared the same set to their face, though Gareth kept his hair trimmed and layered while Gawain simply let his exist in a mess of braids and frizz. His hands were calloused, but from typing on too many keypads, whereas Gawain’s hands were worn from swords, knives, and guns.   
  
And they sounded nearly identical, which proved Galahad’s downfall on the phone nearly every week and proved to give Gareth too many heart attacks. He always said that he’d go white before Gawain did, the way they were abusing him.   
  
Galahad glanced over at the desk and idly began to crack each finger loudly.   
  
“Galahad,” Gawain said sharply.   
  
“Yeah,” Gareth retorted, mimicking the same tone so it produced a stereo-like effect. “ _Galahad_.”  
  
“I hate you,” Galahad muttered under his breath and grasped a pillow to cover his ears with, just so he could ignore Gareth completely. As many years as had passed since he had first gotten together with Gawain, he still had yet to learn how to truly behave like an adult.   
  
“There,” Gareth announced proudly, while Gawain was leaning over his shoulder to look at the program and Galahad was intent on ignoring him completely. “I’ve run through the program and provided they don’t change anything, the alarms won’t go off. I’ve rerouted the power to other sectors in the neighbourhood from the alarm grid, but you’ll still have light.” The grin on his face was so wide and smug that it looked like it might split his cheeks apart.  
  
Gawain clapped his hand on Gareth’s shoulder. “You, little brother, are a genius,” he announced.  
  
“Rub it in,” Galahad muttered, from behind his pillow.   
  
14.   
  
The agreement that Arthur would no longer take confession came with caveats. After a week of going without his weekly ritual, Arthur had become rather terse and had begun snapping at every last thing, from the breakfast foods to the way his tables were being dusted right down to the way Galahad was tying his shoes.   
  
Before blood could be shed, Lancelot had intervened and had used his usual genius.   
  
“A psychiatrist,” he’d said, smirking broadly. “You already have an appointment and I swear to your God, Arthur, if you waste the down payment, I will be worse than any wife in any marriage when it comes to withholding sex.”  
  
Sometimes, Lancelot thought that the threat was the only reason that Arthur still attended his sessions, because he never seemed happy when he came out of them. Today was session number four and apparently, Arthur and Dr. Gilman (“It’s almost like Kill Man,” Tristan had once commented in that offhand and distant way he had) were discussing his faith issues that Tuesday afternoon from Four to Five PM.   
  
Lancelot enjoyed the waiting room outside of the office with the pretty receptionist who always wore pink and no pants when Lancelot was there. Even if he wasn’t in the market, he hadn’t suddenly gone blind and it wouldn’t hurt to wink and flirt just a little. If nothing else, it kept Arthur at the top of his game. Sometimes, he attempted to hear the conversation from behind the thick walls, as though Arthur would tell the psychiatrist the deep insights that he refused to share with Lancelot. The thoughts were paranoid, but he had learned to expect every unexpected thing in their business because when you stopped expecting, that was when the bullet to the back of your head came.   
  
Arthur emerged from the office at  _exactly_  an hour from the minute he’d gone in.   
  
“You’re like clockwork,” Lancelot observed wryly and it wasn’t a compliment. “Well, how was it?” Arthur didn’t even bother to answer him, simply grasped his coat and bristled past Lancelot on his way out.   
  
He took a moment to smile at the receptionist, leaning in on the counter. “I’ll see you next week,” he promised before toddling off after Arthur like a fucking  _puppy_. “Arthur,” he growled. “Slow down.” He had been standing by the elevator in that calm and hidden way, shadowing all his problems by not speaking of them and letting the light banish them. “Well? How did it go?”  
  
“You do realize that by dressing up as a priest and having your way with me, you’ve only compounded years-worth of issues?” Arthur inquired, the words sounding vaguely mocking and slightly echoed, which meant two things. The first was that Arthur had received some psychiatric advice and had opened up during those precise sixty minutes. The second thing it meant was that Arthur was discussing their sex life with a complete stranger. Wanker.   
  
“It was worth it,” Lancelot decided with a smug grin as he corralled Arthur with an arm around his waist, leading him down the stairs. He could  _feel_ Arthur tensing up and trying to repress it. “So, that’s multiple sessions, you still hate the man, and it’s doing nothing for you. I think you need a much more personal touch in the therapy department, Arthur.”  
  
The stairway had a resonating effect on their words and each phrase bounced high off the ceiling before reverberating back. “Lancelot, I’m not in the mood…”  
  
“Not sex,” he interrupted, rolling his eyes. “I am capable of other functions, Arthur.”  
  
He gave the door a hard push, tugging Arthur along by the hand and placing the keys to the car within Arthur’s palm, folding them in slowly. It was Lancelot’s favourite car, the black Lamborghini, and he never let anyone else drive it, under the threat of slow, torturous death. But right now, he was giving Arthur the keys.   
  
“Lancelot, are you still you in there?” Arthur asked, tapping on his forehead with his index finger.  
  
“ _This_  is my brand of therapy. Come on. I’m sure we can find some side-streets to test out, hm?” he said with that same charming grin as upstairs, but this time, there was a promise to follow-through in his eyes. “And afterwards, I’m taking you to the club where I will ply you with alcohol and we’ll watch as girls fall over themselves to try and win you.”  
  
“That sounds like your idea of a good night,” Arthur agreed and disagreed to Lancelot’s suggested ‘therapy’, all in one go, but his clasp on the keys tightened and his smile widened as a mischievous glint settled within his eyes. “Come on, then. I believe I owe you the ride of your life.”  
  
“Now, Arthur, really,” Lancelot sarcastically drawled. “You gave me that last night.”  
  
That was met with a sarcastic look all its own and Arthur pushed a single button so that the doors shut automatically before he buckled up, leaning over to meet Lancelot over the gearshift for a lengthy and possessive kiss. He started the engine with a single push of a button that got it roaring and the car vibrating. Lancelot kept one hand on Arthur’s thigh as they went, brushing his fingers slowly up the inseam of Arthur’s jeans with every hard right, every push to the gas, and every shift in gears. Every so often, it seemed as though his fingers might stray all the way up, but they would cease and leave Arthur wanting.   
  
Arthur parked with abruptness, yanking them about before reaching across the seat, cradling Lancelot’s face with his elbow bent by his chin, the hand of that arm  _grabbing_  his hair with a fierce tug, no gentleness left to be exchanged. Lancelot fell into the touch like putty, his hand finally moving past that invisible barrier on Arthur’s leg to grasp his crotch with a wild grab. His leg nearly wrapped around the gearshift as he let the seatbelt fly loose, crawling into Arthur’s lap and setting off the horn when he couldn’t  _exactly_  fit and the blare of it gained the profanity of passers-by and a deep laugh from Arthur. “Lancelot, we can wait until we’re inside,” he advised.  
  
“You and your  _waiting_ ,” he complained, but opened the door and crawled out, sporting a hard-on and not in the least ashamed of it. “One day, you’re going to wait yourself right into an early grave.”  
  
“That’s not how the saying goes.”  
  
“Bite me.”  
  
They easily entered the club with Arthur slipping a note into the bouncer’s palm and giving him a nod that spoke of being grateful for the allowances made for them to enter and have their very own private booth – as they always did. They had an understanding with the owners, after all. Lancelot led the way with a cocksure walk, letting go of Arthur’s hand as he embraced the club’s music and the lights, throwing back his curly hair as though it was rain falling on his face and refreshing him and when Lancelot looked over his shoulder, he found Arthur simply watching him, masking a fond smile as he kept in Lancelot’s path and made sure to not lose him in the throng of patrons.   
  
Lancelot didn’t stop for his usual chatting up the bartender, which might have been a sign that something was amiss, but he was mostly hoping that Arthur would simply be too distracted from therapy to notice. It wasn’t as though he was going to say it aloud, but maybe this night out was as much for him as it was for Arthur and Lancelot needed the release.   
  
When he had taken the job, he had expected it to be stressful. But this was almost too much, this feeling that he might break at any moment into a million shattered pieces that might never be pieced back together, because the world around them would keep hiding the pieces in new corners.   
  
He always wondered how Arthur did it, but was beginning to finally see that Arthur never did have a firm grasp on it and had always been a step away from breaking; he was beginning to understand how genuinely important Lancelot had been in keeping the Company running because of what he provided Arthur. Lancelot still wished for an easy fix, a bandage to plaster on the ever-growing wound of worry that threatened to hollow him inside-out.   
  
He must have looked something horrific because the next thing Lancelot realized, there was a strong and firm and familiar hand clasped around his bicep – Arthur’s gold ring on his right hand gleamed in the spastic lights of the club – and was taking him aside; not to their table, but rather back outdoors.  
  
“What are you doing?” Lancelot asked tersely, shrugging Arthur’s hand off in order to cross his arms across his torso.   
  
When Lancelot breathed out, it formed a mist of fog before them, obscuring his vision, but he could see the sympathy in Arthur’s eyes and he hated the way it made him feel, as though a stupid child who needed placating. “Lancelot,” Arthur spoke in his deep tone, the one that had calmed him at so many times. “It will work if you plan it carefully and have faith in God.”  
  
Lancelot exchanged a rueful look with Arthur. “God,” he echoed sarcastically.  
  
“Yes. That great and everlasting presence that I love so dearly,” Arthur agreed, his voice dry as kindling ready to be burned in a forest fire. “If you cannot have faith in God, then I hope you can at least have faith in me. In the others. Have  _faith_  in yourself, Lancelot.”  
  
He placed his hand on Lancelot’s bicep once more, warm fingers squeezing against cool fabric.  
  
This time, Lancelot didn’t push him away, but rather took solace in the touch.   
  
15.   
  
One of the problems that they had run into was a distinct cash flow problem. Dagonet had done iteration after iteration and every time, it came up the same. They were short. Specifically, they needed new weapons, technological equipment, and outfits for the job and they had nothing left in the coffer for it. It was beginning to get desperate and that was the point that Lancelot accepted a last-minute quickie from the mafia. It was a count of three, all drug-dealers of the nastiest sort. The ‘nicest’ of them had five bodies in the ground, two of them being young men that couldn’t afford to keep up with the lifestyle. In the end, Galahad and Gawain were dispatched the task.  
  
That hadn’t been the original intention.  
  
Lancelot had been ready to send Tristan out to do it when Dagonet hooked him by the arm and brought him aside, whispering something into his ear that only Lancelot and Dagonet would ever know. After that, Lancelot returned and sent Tristan to do a pick-up, giving the task brief to Gawain and giving him a serious look. “It’s a two million pound job,” he stressed. “You will not screw this up. And you will not let the pup screw it up either. Understood?”  
  
Gawain snatched the folder with a roll of his eyes. “We  _are_  capable,” he said pointedly and tossed a copy of the instructions to Galahad. He could almost time the lighting up of Galahad’s eyes when he read the location and the time.   
  
The three men they were scheduled to take out were planning to attend a strip club that night. That little tidbit of information was clearly wetting Galahad’s appetite, because the smile on his face only grew wider and wider until it evoked frustrated groans from all those around him.   
  
“Galahad, it’s a job,” Gawain sighed, rubbing his eyes. The unspoken words were, ‘and you are supposed to be faithful to me and not sticking notes down a stripper’s thong’. Not that he was possessive or jealous or anything of the like. “We could at least  _pretend_  to be consummate professionals.”  
  
“Or we could have fun,” Galahad countered stubbornly. “You never want to have any fun at all,” he chastised.   
  
Gawain rubbed his eyes as a sigh passed his lips and Lancelot exchanged a look with Dagonet. “Oh, just go on,” Gawain muttered. “He won’t stop, so you might as well keep briefing.”   
  
“Be  _careful_ ,” Lancelot reiterated. “Be careful, a million times, be careful. This is just a bank job, not even the real thing.” He was addressing Galahad for the most part, but the youngest of the group was barely paying attention. “Be…”  
  
“Careful, yes,” Galahad interrupted tersely. “I think we’ve got that now, Lancelot, thanks. Really.”  
  
“Don’t come whining to me when you get arrested and want someone to bail you out,” Lancelot said. “Dagonet, give them their new equipment and let them be off.”  
  
It didn’t take very long for Dagonet to get everything set up, information tucked into pockets and weapons concealed in special casings in case there was an x-ray machine – by some odd, odd chance that things would be additionally difficult for them. Lancelot had been right about one thing, they were going to be extremely careful. The clock was ticking faster and faster and none of them could afford to throw a wrench in the carefully crafted plans, lest they lose their window of opportunity.  
  
Once inside the club, it took  _exactly_  nine minutes and forty-two seconds before Galahad did something that could potentially make a bloody mess out of the whole evening; a mistake in the form of three lines of white powder.  
  
“I cannot believe you,” Gawain muttered tersely, his teeth grit as he sat at a table, not-drinking his Scotch and keeping his eye on three men hollering at the women on stage. These men were their marks, each uglier, more of a brute, and louder than the last and sporting scars, beards, and half the English countryside in dirt, from the looks of it. “Sometimes, Galahad, I wonder if you ever grew older than sixteen.”  
  
“Well, clearly I’m old enough to be here legally,” he replied lightly, tapping his fingers on the table faster and faster and faster. “And to do many,  _many_ other things,” he added lasciviously. He leaned over the table and did something with his tongue and a cherry that made Gawain grip the table harder.  
  
His grip didn’t happen to be the only thing that was hard about the moment, either.   
  
He turned his head away to ignore Galahad’s gallivanting about and focused on the three men, who were in the process of receiving a lapdance from a woman named Raspberry Jones – really,  _really_  not the best stripper name, but then, not everyone listened to the suggestions that Tristan carefully sent in the mail, printed neatly and drafted with the utmost of care. There was a job to be done and if it wasn’t done with the utmost efficiency, then there would be a great issue in that they would not only have the law breathing down their necks, but would also have run out of money.  
  
“Galahad, do you…” he turned back to ask a question, only to discover that Galahad had slipped away to somewhere and by the looks of it, he was headed to the men’s water closet to do Gods only knew what.   
  
Gawain rubbed at his eyes, repeating the various reasons he loved Galahad under his breath. If he kept reiterating the various reasons, maybe then and only then would he not go and pin him up against a tiled wall to reiterate all the reasons he was currently being stupid.  
  
At the thought of the pinning and the tiled wall, Gawain shifted, which a nearby waitress took to mean he wanted a lapdance, descending on him like he was her prey.   
  
“Hello,” he greeted, politely, grasping her hips lightly.  
  
Well, he was still a  _man_.   
  
The woman was a brunette and voluptuous to boot, seemingly very eager to do her job and the curls of her hair reminded him slightly of Galahad, though he far preferred the lean body without the generous breasts. Had he wanted this, he would have all-too-easily had his pick of any woman. But he didn’t want that and he had been more than vocal about it. She had a dark voice, rich and sultry, and she whispered in his ear, her name, along with ‘having fun?’ and Gawain smiled politely and tucked a fiver down her stockings, just to make sure no one thought he was an incredible tosser for showing up to a strip club and then not even enjoying the entertainment. While Galahad might not have believed in the worth of being incognito, Gawain would rather not spend the rest of his days living in a cell, being someone else’s Sweetheart.   
  
Eventually, the woman in his lap, by name of Rocket Jane, eased herself out and gave him a wink as she wandered away and it was barely a second before there was a heavy weight in his lap again; a heavy and  _familiar_  weight.  
  
“Galahad,” Gawain snapped, shoving him off and staring sternly in his direction.   
  
“You’re no fun,” Galahad accused grumpily, sliding back into his own seat and with just  _one_  look in his direction, Gawain would see the dilated pupils, the fidgeting of his fingers at a pace more rapid than usual, and the flush in his cheeks told him all he needed to know about his body temperature.   
  
There was fun and there was idiocy. This bordered on the idiotic sublime.  
  
“You did cocaine?” Gawain leaned in, grasping Galahad by the shirt to yank him in and hiss, keeping the accusation between them.  
  
“It,” Galahad replied haughtily, “promotes mental alertness.”  
  
 _You love the man, you love him, you love him and it would be a bloody shame if you had to kill him._    
  
Eventually, the mantra took and Gawain was able to settle himself down and focus on the game plan. He kept his eyes on the girls as a cover for the way his gaze constantly slipped to the table of their ‘friends’, waiting for the right moment. Eventually, they would make their way to the alley for a transaction and Gawain and Galahad would follow, as swift as shadows walked. It would happen, but Gawain didn’t know  _when_  it would happen and patience was important. The easiest jobs went south without patience.  
  
Gawain felt a tugging at his sleeve. He craned his neck fluidly to the side to see Galahad giving the signal for ‘go, now’ and he slid from the chair casually, as if he were just making a stop to the little boy’s room. Sure enough, Galahad followed right behind and considering the looks they were getting, they expected them to be doing the one thing that Gawain wished they were there for.  
  
After all, nothing better than the stall in a stripclub to have a little fun.  
  
Gawain led the way, pushing the heavy door to the alley open and pushing his coat back as he grasped his gun and without missing a step, took the safety off and fired two perfect shots, letting Galahad field the third, his back pressed to Gawain’s to protect each other.  
  
It was a symphony in efficiency and practice, dual techniques that had become so entwined with the other that they were more effective together. It hadn’t been like that years ago when Galahad was still too stubborn to be of any use to anyone but himself, but with time he had mellowed out and had learned to work with Gawain and adjust to his fighting style.  
  
Three bodies slumped to the soggy ground in the alley and Gawain holstered his gun back under his jacket. Blood was slowly seeping out of the professional bullet wounds they had given the men, but before Gawain could speak, he found himself being shoved up against the brick wall.  
  
“Galahad,” Gawain exhaled heavily, eyes flitting to the crime scene they were a part of. He shoved the other man off, which seemed to only give him renewed enthusiasm for pushing Gawain against the firm wall and shoving his tongue down Gawain’s throat. Gawain kissed back, tearing at Galahad’s lower lip and shoving him off at the same time, giving him a glare of death. “Not at the scene,” he snapped.  
  
“The car is out front,” Galahad offered in that coy way he had.  
  
“ _Home_ ,” Gawain pointed out.   
  
He swore to himself that if Galahad wasn’t so absolutely such a good time while he was on the stuff, Gawain might just have to stage an intervention to avoid the blatant displays of stupidity like the one he’d just witnessed. Not to mention, it left Gawain in a very uncomfortable position when it came to sitting.  
  
Home couldn’t come fast enough.   
  
16.   
  
The children played very quietly, refusing to make any noise above a peep for fear of what Vanora might say to them in a lashed warning. With their sibling sick, the entire air of the home was much quieter, despite Vanora, Bors’ and Dagonet’s constant promises to the children that all would be well.  
  
While Dagonet kept his own place, he spent all of his time with Vanora and Bors, unwilling to leave their side during such a time. If truth be told, he’d rarely left their side before either. They worked best when there were three and Vanora had always promised that, whether whispered in Bors’ ear or breathed against Dagonet’s neck in the darkness of the bedroom. Her lips – as red as her hair in the moonlight – whispered promises of home to them both and asking Dagonet to never leave.   
  
Now, Dagonet sat by Vanora as she knit the most useless of shapes in an effort to keep her hands busy and little else. She’d never learned how to make socks or hats over the years, only knew the simple technique it took to knit yarn into something with shape and this was what she did while Bors was out there in the midst of a life they had thought long past.  
  
Dagonet sat beside her with an unmoving hand upon her shoulder.   
  
“This isn’t out of control?” Vanora asked, staring down at her lap. “The boys haven’t gone and done anything stupid to ruin it?”   
  
“They’re good boys,” Dagonet said simply and quietly.   
  
“You know I don’t like this business a bit,” Vanora hissed lightly, keeping her voice down so that the children wouldn’t hear. “You know I’d rather have him do anything else in the world,  _anything_  than this.” Despite Vanora’s harsh words on Dagonet’s continued line of work, he didn’t say a word. He understood that sometimes, words needed to be released into the world. “But it’s the only thing he’s ever known how to do. The bar hardly makes the necessary money and…”  
  
Dagonet’s hand squeezed the lightest amount of pressure and Vanora finally took her gaze off of the knitting to look over at him.   
  
“Everything is going according to plan,” Dagonet promised in his rough, yet soothing tone. His fingers brushed over the fabric of Vanora’s shirt and she swallowed thickly, turning her attention back to the knitting.   
  
It was good that she didn’t look at Dagonet’s face. While he had perfected the art of not letting his true emotions show (which made Dagonet the obvious choice when it came to attendance at any poker match on behalf of the Knights; Tristan was another choice, but when the hands got bad, his patience seemed to flicker), he had been feeling ill at ease for days now.   
  
“How’re my brats?” Bors’ voice announced his entrance as he unlocked the door and managed to get it bolted, locked, and heavily protected before he even graced the den with his presence. The children took their time to tackle him in greeting and Dagonet and Vanora both watched Bors take the proper time to lavish attention on them.   
  
Eventually, he tugged Dagonet aside with Vanora’s blessing, to sit in the kitchen under the sallow yellow light of a cheap lamp. Neither man had to raise the topic to know what they were discussing, as it’d been on both their minds for far too long to simply dismiss as a coincidence or overreaction.  
  
“He’s losing his mind,” Bors opined, muttering the words into his hands. “Ever since he found out about that  _bloody_  myth.” He shook his head again. “He’s losing his mind.”  
  
“I know.” Dagonet’s agreement didn’t even need words so much more than a simple nod, but he gave the Bors the comfort of two simple spoken words to tide him through his disbelief and his rage.   
  
“Do you think that’s it? If he loses what’s left of that psychotic brain of his, we’re done for,” Bors snapped, vitriolic as ever, sounding like a man on his last thread himself. “Christ, Dag, to get  _this far_  and to have to worry about one murderous man who’s gotten all sappy over a lover, it’s the last thing that should be on our minds.”  
  
“We can handle him,” Dagonet assured, calm as ever.  
  
Bors looked up at him and Dagonet held his gaze, stared back. Seconds passed and turned into minutes and Bors yielded, drawing his gaze away to leave the kitchen and join Vanora with a kiss pressed to her hair.   
  
It was a good thing, too.   
  
Dagonet might have been calm and collected, but he was never sure how long he could maintain a lie. While he was assured in the skills of himself and the other Knights, Tristan had always been unpredictable and slightly wild. If it came down to the six of them versus one, he couldn’t predict the outcome.  
  
That terrified Dagonet, under a vow of honesty. It also made him relieved that Bors believed him when he told him such pretty lies.   
  
17.   
  
The unraveling of a complex plan came at the expense of a historian’s life, one who knew too much about the Holy Grail and its regenerative properties, as believed in by many a cult, myth, and healer. No sane person would believe in it, but Tristan had long passed a point of sanity long ago, when his nightmares weren’t plagued by the face he loved and when the sight of a graveyard didn’t make him so viscerally sick.  
  
He was there again within the private section of the graveyard, kneeling over Dinidan’s grave with one hand thrust into the dirt.   
  
Soft words came mumbling past Tristan’s lips in many languages, in those of the old and some of the new. He made promises and with the blood that stained his hands, he marked Dinidan’s grave. He would never truly believe that all hope was lost and some glimmer of a supernatural phenomenon promised itself to Tristan to heal the man whose death had sent his life off-course and astray into a slump of destruction and malice.   
  
“I thought I’d find you here.”  
  
Tristan didn’t look up, but his hand did slide towards his gun, though it was clearly Lancelot by the timbre and the tone. They could both hear the click of the gun’s safety in the calm night and neither of them were too stupid to think anything but that Tristan had slid the safety  _off_.   
  
“Were you looking?” Tristan asked, eyes on the grave.  
  
“We heard a murder called in.”   
  
“And you presumed it to be me.”  
  
“We  _knew_  it to be you, Tristan.”  
  
Tristan slowly rose to his feet and spun to look at Lancelot. In the haunting light of the moon, Tristan’s face looked ghastly and gaunt, too pale for a man with a still-beating heart in his chest. Lancelot crept ever closer with cocksure steps, the sort that he had possessed since he had first learned to walk.   
  
Tristan was wholly unsurprised to discover that Lancelot had his weapon at the ready.  
  
“There’s a priest to speak with,” he informed Lancelot. “He knows the process and has the stone I need for it to work.”  
  
“It’s a  _myth_ ,” Lancelot managed to get out, sounding ragged and furious at once as he closed the distance between them and Tristan smoothly drew the gun out and pressed it to Lancelot’s heart the moment that Lancelot got his gun up against Tristan’s temple. The second of Lancelot’s guns was pushed against Tristan’s chest, dead in the middle.  
  
If any trigger was pulled, they would both be dead within seconds.  
  
“He’s never coming back,” Lancelot spat out angrily, eyes burning in the moonlight between them. Tristan didn’t react, not an emotion flickered over his face. Tristan only raised a brow and slowly let his gun drift up Lancelot’s neck, bristling past the stubble on his face to rest under his chin, poised at a new angle to steal life away. When Lancelot spoke, when he swallowed, he felt it. And Tristan knew that. “He is a dead man and we are searching an  _item_  to save the life of Bors’ child through things like money to pay for bills! Bills and hospital requisitions and tests!”  
  
“You never believed,” Tristan murmured, as if disappointed.  
  
“Tristan, you’ve gone mad,” Lancelot scoffed, and for his words he received a brutal pistol-whip across his cheek from Tristan’s gun.   
  
He stumbled backwards and his fingers went to press against the flushed stretch of skin that was no doubt going to bruise by the morning. He shoved the safety back on his guns and holstered them under his jacket before advancing on Tristan, fists clenched and at the ready. He managed to land a single punch before Tristan smoothly stepped back and took out his knife.   
  
“Tristan…” Lancelot warned in a low growl.   
  
“You never believed,” Tristan reiterated quietly, sliding the knife away as if he’d thought of something else, something  _better_. He slowly approached Lancelot and used the butt of his gun to knock Lancelot to the damp ground, unconscious amongst the graves and the monuments to people long lost.  
  
He was in his car and long lost to the night as the thunder crashed above Lancelot and the pouring rain drew him back to consciousness.   
  
“Shit,” he swore under his breath, nearly launching himself at his mobile. “Pick up, Arthur, pick  _up_ ,” he spoke desperately as he staggered to his feet and fought his way through the onslaught of the elements to get back to his car.   
  
They had just lost control.  
  
18.   
  
It was storming. Lancelot had called Arthur on his mobile, a panicky, cut-off message with static drowning out his words, shouting, “Tristan! Arthur, get Tristan, he’s gone…” there was too much static, thunder rolling in the background as Arthur peered up at the church. “…the church, the…” Arthur stared up to the cross, the stained glass, the rain pouring down on his face. “Arthur,  _get Tristan_!”  
  
Tristan had gone too many days without sleep. He had been told too many secrets, given too much false hope. In the distance, Arthur heard sirens. No doubt on their way here.   
  
He pushed into the church, standing in the back in shadows, the lights turned off, save for the candles by the altar. Arthur stood and watched as Tristan held the priest with a knife to his throat, whispering hoarsely for answers, whispering and then shouting, demanding, “Tell me!” in a voice that echoed and bounced off the walls of the church. In the pews sat three worshippers, come to pray quietly, but now they whimpered and sat in fear.  
  
“Tristan!” Arthur called out clearly. “Put him down,” he ordered.  
  
Tristan simply laughed. “The great Arthur comes to fetch me?” he asked, not turning around.   
  
Arthur smoothly withdrew his gun from its holster and clicked the safety off, a sound that resonated in his ears and no doubt something that Tristan would hear. He brushed aside the flaps of his long coat and held the gun firmly in his hand, leading with it as he began to storm down the aisle, side-stepping the baptismal font in the middle of the carpet as he continued to make his way forward, briskly charging Tristan with gun pulled.  
  
He reached the stairs when he heard a familiar click and Tristan turned smoothly, the priest still in his other hand. He had his gun drawn on Arthur.   
  
Arthur froze in his steps, pointing the gun at Tristan’s heart, where he could shoot for the kill. Tristan had it aimed at Arthur’s forehead, dead in the middle and Arthur had no doubt that if he took the shot, he would be dead in an instant. Tristan had the best aim of all of them, the best range.   
  
“Tell him, Arthur, he’s a man of  _your_  faith, tell him to give me the stone!” Tristan shouted loudly. “We need it, Arthur,” he turned, eyes dark and possessed by a darker plan. “We need it. The stone, the stone and the grail, together we can heal him,” he insisted. “We’ll bring him back!”  
  
 _Dinidan._  
  
Arthur closed his eyes and faltered slightly, his gun lowering and he heard a sound behind him, the echoing sound of a gunshot. The woman in the second pew screamed loudly and went running as Tristan slumped to the ground. Arthur stared. The shot hadn’t gone anywhere lethal and he hadn’t fired. He turned around to find Lancelot standing in the doorway with Galahad beside him, lowering a gun. Arthur gave an exhalation, relief coursing through his body as he put the safety back on his gun and turned around, pressing a kiss to his rosary before joining the two.   
  
“About time you got here,” Arthur said sternly. “Where’d you shoot him?”  
  
“Thigh,” Galahad responded, showing Arthur his ammunition. Tranquilizers. “He’ll be out for a day, maybe long enough to get some damn sanity back into that idiot’s head.” He glanced over Arthur’s shoulder to the priest standing at the altar, staring numbly down at Tristan’s body. “Arthur?” Galahad spoke quietly. “I think you might need to explain.”  
  
“We’ll get Tristan out of here,” Lancelot promised. “We need him better for the heist.” He cursed under his breath. “Three fucking days. All right, we have to move, Guinevere is on her way, Dag heard it over the dispatches. Arthur? Don’t look incriminating.” They worked efficiently as Arthur gave Lancelot all the weapons he possessed. The various other witnesses had fled, prompted by Galahad’s quiet concern, giving them all numbers to telephone, citing himself as a ‘detective on this case’.   
  
They carried Tristan off through the side entrance and the door slammed shut to accompany the sound of thunder crashing in the sky. It wasn’t much longer before the police arrived and though the priest did his best to protest, they immediately snatched Arthur and yanked him to his feet.  
  
“Put him in a cell for the night,” one of the officers muttered. “I’m sure the Boss will want to talk to him.”  
  
19.   
  
They sat in a hasty circle in the headquarters, with Gawain and Galahad in folded chairs, Bors and Dagonet on the couch, and Lancelot standing before them all, rubbing at his face. In the other room, in the makeshift prison, not a sound was made. They had locked Tristan in the training room after removing all the weapons he had from his person. The tranquilizer had probably worn off by now.  
  
The silence was beginning to become unnerving and Galahad kept throwing wary looks towards the heavy door that separated them from a half-mad maniac.  
  
“Lancelot,” Dagonet entreated lowly.  
  
“Not yet,” Lancelot snapped tersely. “Not yet. Give me a second to think.”  
  
They waited like that for fifteen minutes more in silence. Galahad’s hand drifted to Gawain’s knee to idly rub up and down and for once, the others saw that it wasn’t out of anything but a need to move, to do something but think of what lay waiting for them in the other room; the face of a friend and the soul of a killer hell bent on one thing and they stood in the way. Bors sat on the edge of his seat, fingers twitching, but he never got up. They all looked to Lancelot and simply  _waited_.   
  
“We can’t go forward without him,” Lancelot finally admitted heavily. “We need him.”  
  
“He’s gone mad,” Galahad spat out. “More than he usually is, obviously, but the point remains that the man we know as a brutal killer with dead-accurate aim has gone around the bend. Do you really think he’s going to stop when it comes to us?”  
  
“He won’t kill us,” Dagonet said.  
  
“How do you know?” Galahad demanded. “How can you possibly know!”  
  
“Galahad,” Gawain muttered quietly, which seemed to at least pull Galahad from his battle-ready stance and back into a regular sit.   
  
“I’m only saying,” he muttered to the room, just as petulant as before, but now sounding defeated rather than hyperactive. The silence seeped in once more and finally, it seemed that it grew to be enough.  
  
Lancelot finally moved, hands by his side as he wandered his way over to the door, pointing vehemently to it. “ _He_  stays in there until one of us gets through to him. Arthur is out of commission until we can get bail to clear and she’ll keep him for as long as she can, so I’ll call the lawyers as well,” he said, sounding as if he was speaking mostly to himself in an effort to calm himself down. “Any suggestions on what we do with Tristan?”  
  
“Talk to him,” Dagonet said, three words bearing all the knowledge of many a man. “Each of us, alone. Keep him chained, but we need to bring him back to the world of the living and away from fantasies of raising the dead.”  
  
Each of the Knights shifted uncomfortably where they sat and stood. Along with being an expert marksman when it came to a gun, Tristan had always had a razor-sharp insight that went along with the fact that he seemed to see everything. Most of the time, he kept it to himself, but the idea of him actually using the information to lash out was far from a pleasant one and even Dagonet was looking displeased at his own suggestion.   
  
“What else can we do?” Gawain admitted with a heavy sigh. “I’ll go first.”  
  
“Be careful,” it was Galahad who had spoken up, voice rough from what sounded like worry.   
  
Gawain gave Lancelot a simple clap on the shoulder as he brushed past him and opened the door to the training room, locking and bolting it behind him. He had been expecting what he saw as he hadn’t had any romantic notions about what they’d done to Tristan, so to find him locked in about three sets of chains and sitting in a chair was almost kinder than the image in Gawain’s mind.  
  
The picture Gawain had painted involved Tristan being far more bruised up than he actually was. He had to wonder if Galahad hadn’t tranquilized him if he would be black and blue all over from the fight.  
  
“Gawain,” Tristan greeted evenly.  
  
“Tristan,” Gawain mumbled in return, taking the seat opposite of Tristan and leaving four feet of room between them, just in case. They sat like that for minutes of silence as Gawain leaned forward, back arching under invisible pressure. “I’m not armed.”  
  
“That was stupid of you.”  
  
“Insults already,” Gawain commented. “Right. Here I thought we’d at least go ten minutes without one.”  
  
“You thinking we’d last ten minutes is optimistic,” Tristan countered. He hadn’t once taken his eyes off of Gawain, a cold and icy stare that made Gawain determined not to let him win. Even if there was nothing to ‘win’ exactly, Gawain knew he wanted to be stronger than Tristan was in that moment.  
  
“Five?”  
  
“Two,” Tristan negotiated calmly in return, easing back smoothly to the sound of his chains and shackles shaking loudly. “Whatever you’ve come to say, it won’t matter,” he promised.  
  
“Do you remember Daniel?” Gawain asked, rubbing at his eyes. “I know it seems like forever and an age ago. That little poet bastard who beat me and Percival up before going to Arthur and asking for a job, saying that’d been his interview?” It seemed an eternity ago and Gawain swallowed the bitterness of knowing that Daniel had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, like all of them, and now lay in a deep grave. “You took him under your wing. You taught him how to deal with things no one ever meant to expect.”  
  
“Gawain, he’s dead.”  
  
“So’s Dinidan,” Gawain pointed out harshly.  
  
Silence, then.   
  
“Tristan, I’m sorry.”  
  
There came no response.  
  
Gawain sighed and rubbed a hand through his hair, staring at the other man, who had yet to stop staring at him with such pure hatred and disinterest, all in the same expression.  
  
“And now you’re not going to talk, right?” Gawain scoffed, because he should have seen that coming a while away. In fact, he was surprised Tristan had even spoken to him to begin with, and now here they were at the expected end. Gawain sighed and pushed himself to his feet, glancing over his shoulder to look at Tristan, who had yet to move his gaze from Gawain’s chair.  
  
 _Great. He’s gone mad and Arthur is locked away, being the one person who could possibly talk him out of it,_  Gawain thought to himself before pounding on the door to signal the others to let him out and switch.   
  
When he saw that Galahad was next, Gawain grasped him by the upper arm, his hold possessive and firm and the look they shared between them wasn’t tinged with stubbornness and anger, for once. ‘Be careful,’ was all Gawain mouthed and he didn’t need to say more for Galahad to understand the depth of those words, what they really meant.  
  
Galahad waltzed into the room as if he didn’t have a care in the world of being there, pacing back and forth and spinning an arrow as he did, eyes on Tristan, who was watching the arrow. When Galahad saw that he had his full attention, he smirked to himself.   
  
Galahad was armed in other ways, but this was the best way; Tristan wanted a weapon, wanted to use something to hurt  _someone_  and Galahad had the power in the room. Around and around the arrow spun, this outdated piece of weaponry that Galahad thought was quaint in the way that all useless weapons were.  
  
“Planning to share, pup?”  
  
“You know how I feel about sharing,” Galahad pointed out.  
  
“One need only look at Gawain, yes.” Tristan hadn’t blinked, eyes now shifting from the weapon to Galahad himself. “How are you two? Are you still terrified that he’s going to leave you any moment?”  
  
The arrow clattered to the ground when Galahad’s grasp failed.   
  
“I’m not the only one who sees it,” Tristan remarked casually, now giving his nails a cursory study. “Dagonet’s too kind to mention and of course, dear Vanora just keeps a girl or two on the phone in case it ever does happen. Paradise never lasts. Either he leaves or he dies, but either way, you  _are_ going to lose him.”  
  
Galahad’s impassive look had slowly transformed into a heated glare, one that could melt materials of all alloys and he leaned in until he was close enough that he could spit in Tristan’s face, but the other man couldn’t touch him.  
  
“I’m not going to lose him,” he replied, words low and dangerous. “And if I do somehow lose Gawain to death, then I’ll let him  _stay dead_.”  
  
He snatched up the arrow from the floor, yanking the heavy door open with a slam.   
  
“Bors, I’m done with him,” Galahad muttered.   
  
The switching of the guard this time was efficient and Tristan exchanged one dark look with Bors before he smiled that calculating and precise smirk he got when something was in his mind.   
  
“You’re not worth it,” Bors announced with disgust, spitting at the floor by Tristan’s chair and out he went before he even came in.   
  
There was silence in the room and for a brief flicker of a moment, Tristan began to rock on the chair once more, as if to test the strength and begin to pry himself loose, but it was as he was working on the back legs that the door shut firmly and the sound of it echoed through the training room.  
  
Dagonet was standing there, broad and immovable, arms crossed and a dour look on his face that gave away not one emotion.   
  
“Dagonet.”  
  
“Tristan.”  
  
He didn’t move from the door, but his eyes never left the man.   
  
“You won’t move me,” Dagonet warned evenly, voice low. “You won’t chase me off with half-truths. Dinidan would have hated this. I won’t even go so far as to tell Isolde what you’re doing because I don’t care to break her heart.” With each additional sentence, he took steps inside until he could forcibly grab hold of Tristan’s shirt, lifting him up. “You shame the dead,” he got out evenly. “If you loved him, you would let this be for now. Just for now. We’ll right this later, Tristan, but this is selfish. This is wrong. Dinidan wouldn’t have wanted this.”  
  
He looked Tristan up and down and released his strong grip of the man.  
  
“If I walk out and tell them that you’re worthless, Bors’ child is going to suffer,” Dagonet said. There were no dramatics in his voice, only the harsh reality of the situation. “And deep down, I know that you don’t want that. So be a man. Fight for us now. Fight for  _him_  later.”  
  
Dagonet drifted back and regarded Tristan a long moment.   
  
“Well?”  
  
“Come back for me this evening,” Tristan said quietly. “And then I’ll help.”  
  
Dagonet returned to the others and relayed the information in a quiet hush. Together they waited and planned, speaking of maps and codes while all eyes were kept on the sun in the sky. Only when it dipped beyond the horizon did Lancelot make his way to the heavy door, opened it, and untied Tristan from his confines.  
  
“One wrong move,” Lancelot warned quietly. “And something will be done.”  
  
Tristan nodded his understanding, but no emotion flickered over his face and Lancelot knew as well as anyone else that trying to glean emotion from Tristan had gone down in history as impossibility.  
  
“Come on,” Lancelot muttered, begrudgingly. “We have a briefing.”  
  
Tristan followed without a single word.   
  
It gave Lancelot a  _very_  bad feeling.   
  
20.   
  
Each cell came with a small window that shone either daylight or moonlight into the dank cells with their dim lighting and terrible odour. Arthur had been sitting utterly still on his cot, refusing to move or to discuss any matters with his rather large cellmate, who went by the name of ‘Sweetheart’. At first, he had been taunted for it, but Arthur’s unmoving silence and his dark glare had eventually silenced the last whistle and put an end to each and every taunt from the other inmates.  
  
It would be any moment now. Arthur knew his enemy and she would be wanting to speak with him, after all.   
  
None of the Knights had seen Guinevere in some time, not since just after Galahad had been brought into the fold. Gawain had been all-too-happy to keep it that way and brought a picture of ‘that sodding witch’ to darts whenever he could. Arthur had kept his mouth shut about his feelings on the matter. After all, a leader wasn’t supposed to spread around the ill word.  
  
Even if he did agree with the sentiment.  
  
The moonlight spilled into the cell and displayed a silhouette of bars on the floor, leaving Arthur to do nothing but stare forward unflinchingly and think as he had for the previous hours. He’d yet to have a moment to himself that wasn’t plagued by new plans or Lancelot or the other Knights and he hadn’t been able to entertain the quiet worries that assaulted his mind.  
  
The Holy Grail.  
  
He’d always assumed it to be legend, written in the thin pages of a book he held dear to his heart. He knew the importance of such a thing and how it tied into his faith. Now that they were prepared to steal it, Arthur had to admit that he had been sliding his faith away into a neat little corner to avoid thinking on it. It was easier, that way. If he let the trickling and incessant fear out from that corner, then he was in trouble.  
  
“C’mon, you’re bound for interrogation,” one of the younger officers said, clanging at the cell doors with his riot gear.  
  
It made Arthur smile, just barely – an icy shadow of a thing.  
  
He could start a riot, if he wanted. Perhaps, though, he should keep things nice and settled. At least for the moment.   
  
He was led down the halls in shackles and chains and he never stopped staring forward, concocting five different plans in his mind for the moment, wondering just what sort of shape Guinevere would be in after everything. He almost hoped she would be bitter. Perhaps wistful. He didn’t like to leave no mark on the people in his wake. He liked to be the shadow, the darkness, but he also liked to be  _remembered_. He murmured quietly under his breath to God as he was led into a dank room with only a desk and two chairs.   
  
Arthur was shoved unceremoniously into the more uncomfortable of the two. The overhead light swung back and forth and was clearly on its last legs.   
  
He smiled to himself because he knew it was done for effect. Everyone had their own show to put on. His simply came with a whole different set of props and backdrops than the one the police put on. He barely let the minutes affect him as he sat still in the sallow yellow light, studying his fingernails idly and brushing away the last smudge of ink from being fingerprinted on his way in.  
  
Sometime, after enough time had passed and Arthur had still yet to move, the door opened and there stood Guinevere in the doorway with a thick file.  
  
“My Lady,” Arthur greeted her dryly, eyes flicking up to catch her gaze.  
  
She looked  _angry_. Arthur settled in his chair and let the feeling of content wash over him at such a simple thing. She would suspect their actions, of course. She might even be scouting them on her own time, but they had left nothing behind that could put them in prison and Arthur knew it. She knew it. Everyone in the precinct knew it.   
  
“Arthur,” she got out coolly. “Your boys abandoned you.”  
  
“They did what they thought best,” Arthur agreed, watching her as she crossed the room and leaned over the table, slamming the folder down on the surface of the table. “Do I get a story now?”  
  
“Oh, yes,” she agreed bitterly. “Pictures and all.”  
  
“You have nothing in there that can hold me for longer than it takes for my bail to come in,” he replied calmly, tilting his head gracefully to regard the pictures she was laying out of bodies and artifacts, to which Arthur peered blankly up at Guinevere. “I don’t recognize a single person or thing.”  
  
“Please,” she encouraged, a half-whisper that was as much threatening as it was bitter. “Deny it all. When I get the evidence, it will only add to how many years you’re going to spend  _locked up_.”  
  
Arthur simply leaned back in his chair and never did he take his eyes off of Guinevere. He wanted to see her flinch, he wanted to  _make her_  flinch.   
  
Finally, she broke and twitched, just enough for Arthur to let loose a smug shadow of a smirk.  
  
“Well? Are you going to talk?”  
  
“What about, my lady?” he asked, sarcasm thick in his voice. “Religion is a good topic, but a heated one these days. We could talk about how lovely you look after so many years. I can’t imagine the stress of your department lends itself to youthful vigour. Perhaps we can talk about the weather. I hear that’s always a preferred topic.”  
  
“You won’t get away with this,” she threatened, slamming a flattened palm down on the table. “You  _won’t_. I’m not going to let you, not this time.”  
  
“Get away with what, my lady?” Arthur asked, voice deep and dark and smooth as he trained it to be. “All I had hoped was a good night’s rest. Perhaps a film. That is, when my bail clears in a matter of hours.”  
  
He cocked his gaze upwards to hold hers once more.  
  
“Is that all?” he asked, possessing the hand of control there in that dark and small room between the both of them.   
  
“For now,” she agreed, her tone clipped as she shut the folder and picked it up off of the table, storming out of the room.  
  
They left him there alone in his shackles for another hour to keep the company of the various rust stains within the room and the pungent smell.   
  
Arthur hadn’t expected anything less.  
  
21.  
  
There were less than twenty-four hours before they embarked on what would either give them more money than they had ever seen in one sum or take their lives away from them forever. Each of the Knights had gone off for one last day to themselves. Dagonet and Bors had gone to spend time with the children and with Vanora. Lancelot could only assume that Gawain and Galahad had locked themselves in a room with a bed, nourishment, and a large container of lube.  
  
The thought made him scowl, seeing as they wouldn’t be getting Arthur out of jail until the next morning.   
  
As well, he and Tristan were the only ones about the office, which sent the most uncomfortable of chills down Lancelot’s back and had led him to taking the safety off his guns.  _Just in case_.   
  
Tristan would likely be armed himself because he wasn’t an idiot. None of them were, but Tristan had always been in possession of a shrewd constitution, a lack of trust, if you would. Lancelot thought it was pathetic, that after all these years, Tristan still couldn’t trust them, but he supposed that the death of his nearest and dearest friend had left him somewhat hollowed.  
  
Lancelot didn’t often spare time to think of what would happen to him if he lost Arthur. Arthur was…well, a legend. Imagining him out of their lives was impossible because it felt as if Arthur would never,  _could_  never die. He would simply rise from the ashes and continue on somehow. Tristan, though, had probably thought the same of Dinidan before fate had swooped in and had stolen the man from under their very noses. Lancelot’s thoughts mulled over this information again and again while watching Tristan clean his guns.  
  
“If you have something to say, say it,” Tristan encouraged, staring down the barrel of a gun and directly at Lancelot.  
  
The damn thing was probably loaded, too.   
  
Lancelot stopped shuffling invoices and shot Tristan an irritated glance and stepped just inches out of the gun’s range instead of trying to disarm Tristan of the thing. If it wasn’t loaded, then he would look like a massive idiot. He cast an eye downwards on the folders containing every last inch of all their plans and couldn’t help the feeling that even after whatever Dagonet had said and their briefings, that Tristan was still going to abandon them.   
  
“I’m thinking that if you do fuck up, the next contract will be on your head,” Lancelot casually remarked, every inch of those words crawling with the annoyance that had been in him since they had to haul Tristan out of that church. He didn’t even flinch when Tristan corrected his aim and the gun was once again centred right against Lancelot’s forehead. “You wouldn’t.”  
  
“I want to,” Tristan said, deceptively calm. “But I won’t.”  
  
That wasn’t exactly high up on the list of things that set a man at ease. For Tristan, however, it wasn’t low either. That was what kept Lancelot from reaching for his guns.  
  
“We need to work together,” Lancelot pointed out, walking straight toward that aimed gun. “You and me, you and everyone else. So it might be best if we agree not to kill each other until this is all over.”  
  
“A temporary truce,” Tristan echoed, sounding as if he were debating the notion.  
  
If not, well, Lancelot would find a way to work around the madman that Tristan had become. He most definitely wouldn’t like it, but he would do it if it were necessary. This would be simpler, however, to have Tristan agree with Lancelot’s methods, with his plan, with  _Arthur’s_  faith in him, with everything they stood for. If not that, then Lancelot would be acting against everything he had believed in.  
  
With all his  _soul_ , he didn’t want to have to do that.   
  
A truce, then.  
  
“Until this is over,” Lancelot said, locking eyes with Tristan and wondering if lies were being employed as weapons now in an effort to somehow make this work. “Until this is all over, we have a pact. We have a truce.”  
  
Hesitantly, he reached one hand out over the table filled with weapons.   
  
His hand sat there untouched for many minutes while Tristan watched Lancelot, ran his eyes over his body like a predatory eyed his prey (and it made Lancelot clench his jaw and bite back an insult or four at Tristan’s expense). Neither of them backed down; Lancelot giving his peace and Tristan analyzing it for what it was worth.  
  
“Until this is over,” Tristan finally agreed and grabbed hold of Lancelot’s hand, yanking him close until their chests were pressed together and Lancelot’s flared and exhaled breath ghosted over Tristan’s cheek, for their proximity. “But do not expect a loyal subject,” he said quietly, no more than a whisper in Lancelot’s ear, “Not when this is done.”  
  
Lancelot felt that same shiver running down his spine, three times as foreboding as it had been before, but he swallowed and tried not to overly sneer as he gave Tristan a nod.  
  
“Fine.”  
  
And it was only Tristan’s word that Lancelot had to go on.   
  
He prayed to Arthur’s God that it was enough and that it was genuine.   
  
22.   
  
It was raining in the morning, nothing more than a light drizzle that covered the world in a thick sheen of sleepiness and grey. Lancelot had been the one to go to the station with the new car, leaning against the Ducati’s waxed, midnight-blue-coloured door while waiting by the front of the precinct. It was difficult to relax, being that the smallest of things could go wrong and then something terrible would happen, like Arthur being kept in jail and their tiny sliver of a window of opportunity would disappear.   
  
Time passed and Lancelot watched both the second hand of his watch and the doors with equal interest, as though he could will Arthur out of that grimy cell with the power of his mind alone.  
  
The rain began to fall harder than before and Lancelot dug out an umbrella at roughly the same time that Arthur made his way out the front door, tugging at the cuffs of his silk shirt, as though nothing was amiss. Lancelot hurried his way to the awning, umbrella hiding his face from inside the precinct and he stood there without a word while nudging Arthur onwards.   
  
They walked quietly, but with purpose toward the car and a quiet look between them assured Lancelot that nothing was amiss and it was all going to plan.   
  
When they got into the car, it was Arthur that spoke first.  
  
“I saw  _her_.”  
  
“Did you say hello for me?”  
  
“I was rather preoccupied with other matters, Lancelot,” Arthur said dourly, leaning over to flick the wipers on as they sat in the car. Lancelot smacked the wrist as it came over and he didn’t dare say anything, not about the tentative truce that they had reached with Tristan or how he worried that it was a thin veneer atop a very deep lie. Really, to trust Tristan at that point was akin to madness and Lancelot, personally, had never enjoyed the notion of madness. It always came off bad when matched with a finely tailored suit.   
  
So instead, Lancelot let Arthur fiddle with the gadgets of the car.  
  
“Are we ready?”  
  
“As ready as we can be, given the situation.”  
  
“Then it’s t-minus ten hours until we’re all very rich or very imprisoned.”  
  
23.   
  
Ten hours passed far quicker than any of them wanted. The panicked last-minute preparations seemed to take too long and there were a dozen close calls when Galahad thought he had lost the keys, when Dagonet nearly applied too much pressure to one of the guards who was due to go into work in hours, when Bors was nearly late due to one of the brats. There were always close calls, but they had never worked a job of this magnitude before.  
  
Standing in the building together, they had stood around Arthur with all their wares and their skills, with Isolde and Gareth standing somewhat outside; the consummate observers who could never get too close.  
  
“Knights,” Arthur had announced as they left. “Remember. We are the lucky ones. And we shall be victorious tonight for those we love.” His gaze swung around to Tristan and rested there, that cold and calculating look piercing the man. “We honour those we fight for. Let us be honourable tonight.”  
  
“To our fellow brothers,” Lancelot announced.  
  
“To our brothers,” the echo was hushed.  
  
It didn’t take long to equip everyone in equipment and head out to the cars. Dagonet was dropping them off in rounds and would stash the decoy vehicle after removing its plates and destroying them, just in case. The last to go were Tristan with Isolde and Gareth (mostly because none of the others could be trusted with Tristan).  
  
But then, it might not have been the smartest idea to put Tristan with his on-again, off-again ex and Gawain’s finicky brother.  
  
“You’re a disgrace,” Isolde cursed, Irish accent strong as ever. Dagonet and Gareth sat in the front and in the cramped back of the car, Isolde had begun to let loose with the accusations and the open hostility and criticism within seconds of the drive. “Horrible, absolutely worth nothin’ at all.” And on and on it went, but Tristan’s face never shifted and when they pulled up to the side entrance, it was Isolde who got out first.  
  
She was dressed in a slim little red dress that showed off a great deal of thigh and was low-cut to give a glimpse of her figure. Lancelot had done the reconnaissance work that proved that the particular guard on duty had a taste for redheads who had a taste for showing some skin.   
  
And so entered Isolde into the picture.  
  
Her eyes were rimmed in dark eyeliner, giving them a smoky look and she glided on air, despite her heels rising five inches above the ground in little more than a spike. When she exited the car, all attention was on her and she made her way to the guard’s station with the world’s spotlight on her back while the others hid in the shadows and waited for the time to strike.   
  
Galahad and Gawain were waiting by the back entrance for the security system to be disabled. Arthur and Lancelot were at the side. Bors had the perimetre to guard until Dagonet joined him. As soon as Tristan was done gagging and drugging the guard, he would slip in the front door and everyone would be in place to make things go off without a hitch.  
  
“Dear,” Isolde was purring to the guard and Tristan rolled his eyes in the shadows.   
  
“She doesn’t have to act like this,” Tristan muttered, only audible to Dagonet, who was close enough to hear the other man’s distaste. It was a small comfort to Dagonet, a hint of relief that Tristan wasn’t completely lost to them if he could still hold so much of a care as to how Isolde was acting with men who weren’t him.   
  
They kept hushed in the shadows and Tristan was ready to move silently, as if he were never even there.   
  
“I’m afraid I’m lost. My driver’s just left to find directions, but I told him that a handsome man like you would have all the answers for me,” she said, trailing one perfectly manicured nail up his cheek. “I’m trying to get back to town, to the Babylon Hotel.” Leaning in, she even went so far as to bat her eyelashes and had completely ensnared the guard’s attention by now. Tristan had begun to find his way out, syringe in gloved-hands.   
  
Just a little pressure against the neck and the guard wouldn’t utter a single peep to the world until the sun was back in the sky.  
  
Isolde kept murmuring her little compliments, letting her accent roll over the words between entertained giggles and ‘oh, really, stop’s to each compliment that came right back her way.  
  
She smiled wider when Tristan entered behind the guard and leaned in to kiss his cheek, ruby red lips pressed against his ear. “Goodnight, darling.”  
  
And then came just a little prick of a needle.  
  
“Wh…” was all the guard could muster before he slumped over in his seat. Tristan was already signaling Gareth to the booth and Dagonet was already leaving in the car. Radios were affixed to everyone’s belt-loops and the plan was now officially in motion. Tristan smoothly exited just as Gareth was entering and he paused in the doorway, looking Isolde up and down.  
  
“Did you mean what you said?” he asked, staring her up and down. “In the car?”  
  
“Every fucking word,” she agreed, tying the guard up with harsh ropes with the kind of effectiveness that spoke of her having done something like that before in her life. “You need anything, kid?” she asked of Gareth, who shook his head and started to interface with the system, typing away rapidly and bringing up screen after screen of code that didn’t look familiar to anyone.  
  
“Front door unlocked,” Gareth narrated, even as he was typing.  
  
Tristan had left, shedding the syringe by combining a second chemical with the tranquilizer which effectively neutralized it and made it seem as though there was never anything but H20 in that plunger. With that done, he was ready to play his part in the plan.  
  
Gareth was still working furiously while Isolde finished with the guard and unhooked his radio for him, setting it up by the station. “Back doors…side doors…systems set on a fake looped tape…lasers,” he announced and gave the go ahead.  
  
Isolde plucked the radio into her small hands. “All systems go, boys,” she announced.  
  
“And now we just sit tight?” Gareth asked hopefully.  
  
“You keep your eyes on that grid,” she warned, knowing all too well that jobs could too easily go off the rails.  
  
24.   
  
“Gareth, we’re in the main chamber trying to get into the room,” Gawain reported into the radio as he tapped at it, sighing and waiting for the response while Galahad set about marking the floor in the event that the lasers went back on at any point in time. How it had come to the two of them to infiltrate the main chamber had been a simple ‘you’re the youngest’ and when Gawain had asked how  _that_  could possibly have mattered, he’d just gotten a  _look_  from Lancelot.  
  
They were so close and Gawain was itching to be done with it. Thievery wasn’t usually his main skill and when he was back to the main business of killing for hire, he would be much happier. It was all so much simpler.   
  
“Gawain…” came the worried voice over the radio while the two men suited themselves with gloves and caps so as to not leave any DNA.   
  
Gawain was wandering forward, getting the worst of a suspicious niggling at the back of his neck and he couldn’t help but wonder how Gareth had managed to get through the passcodes so quickly. His brother was smart, granted, but not like  _this_. Galahad was three feet away from him and they were so close to the case and each and every alarm had been shut down. Galahad was fumbling with the radio to yank it out and bite out to Gareth that he should just ‘say it already’ when he dropped it.  
  
He went sprawling to the floor for it.  
  
When he looked up, there was nothing but red flashes in his vision.  
  
“Gawain,” Galahad spoke, tense and tight, and not moving an inch where he was in a push-up against the floor, stomach between two lasers. Gawain himself was pressed up against a wall and the radio was where none of them could get to it to talk.  
  
“Shit, there was a delay,” Gareth’s voice came crackling out of the radio. “There’s a failsafe, as soon as I cracked the code, it was like it was  _waiting_ for me to do that because now it’s reverted into a second set of alarms.”  
  
“Can you crack it!?” Galahad shouted from his stuck position even though Gareth couldn’t possibly have heard him, seeing as the radio was out of each of their reach. The muscles in his stomach began to quiver and he knew he had to move soon.  
  
“Okay. Okay, I think I can break this, give me two minutes. There are fingerprints all over this by police, not the museum. Someone with the codename GW has been in the system doing this.”  
  
“Galahad,” Gawain asked warily. “Can you hold that position for two minutes?” he asked, over Gareth’s panicky words.  
  
“No,” Galahad exhaled a short puff of air, trying not to let anything breeze past the extremely delicate sensors of the lasers. “Shit, Gawain, why would there be a second alarm in place? No one knew we were doing this. How could the  _police_  know?”  
  
Gawain had closed his eyes, head pressed against the wall as he tried to recall the whole process that had gotten them to where they were, from the library to Arthur’s arrest and the voice that had been so familiar in those stalls. It came hurtling back to him with clarity, with that gut-punching epiphany that took all the life out of him. “GW. Fuck. Fuck! Guinevere,” he exhaled. “That was her at the library when we were in the stalls.”  
  
“She couldn’t have known we…”  
  
“She’s setting us up,” Gawain growled. “That’s her code in the system, she wants us red-handed. Think of what Arthur said, think of what she’s done to us, what we’ve done to her over the years.”  
  
“Bloody vendetta,” Galahad muttered as he slowly, slowly slid into a side-split, ducking his head carefully under one of the lasers. Gawain opened his eyes and watched worriedly as he ducked, as his thighs trembled but he managed to avoid setting anything off. This had to be it. She was expecting them to set up an alarm and come charging in.  
  
That also meant that she was probably  _there_ , just outside.  
  
“We need to get to that radio,” Gawain said grimly.   
  
Galahad was slowly avoiding lasers gracefully – bending a knee here and there, pointing the tips of his toes, arching his back, and with enough slow precision, he made it to the radio.   
  
“Gareth,” Galahad exhaled, tensely. “We’re okay, but we really need you to fix that code before Tristan gets here.” He was due any moment and if he opened a door unknowingly with the alarm system on, all of this was going to go up in flames. The Grail was in the middle of the room, just waiting for them and they were so close. They were so close and yet so far.  
  
“Got it!” Gareth announced with gleeful delight and almost simultaneously, all the lasers in the room deactivated.   
  
Neither Gawain nor Galahad moved just yet.  
  
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Galahad demanded into the radio, sweat rolling down his forehead as he panted. “Are you sure we can move?”  
  
“Sure,” Gareth confirmed.  
  
That was enough for both of them. They hurried to the Grail as fast as they could possibly manage and even though Galahad complained about his muscles, Gawain ignored him the whole of the time. Now that there had been a slip-up in the plan and they had to alert Lancelot and Arthur about Guinevere’s involvement, they were each of them a lot more on edge than before. Gawain grappled for the radio and switched the frequency when the gunshot rang loud and clear in the confined space of the room of treasures.  
  
Gawain clasped his arm and let out a pained scream as he fell to the ground and before he could locate the shooter, he saw Galahad stagger back, shoulder hit. The first thought Gawain had was mundane and so business-oriented that he had to take a moment to be amazed at how well Arthur had engrained that way of life into them. He’d just thought,  _well, shit, blood everywhere_. Then he realised that Galahad had been  _shot_. He clambered over across the room with radio in hand as he grimaced and shoved a hand against Galahad’s wound, even if he was bleeding harder.  
  
“Hey, it’s okay,” Gawain murmured, eyes searching the room wildly to find Tristan towering over the both of them, his long shadow cast across the floor in a sinister fashion that made Gawain want to grab his gun and shoot him. Those thoughts were instantly derailed, though, when he realised that Tristan had the advantage of perfect health and whatever deranged mental status he’d slipped into. They stared at each other, Gawain and Tristan, for some time, before Tristan turned and began to cut through the glass to nab the Holy Grail and Gawain had to contend with his gunshot wound, not to mention Galahad’s.   
  
“Fuck,” Galahad was swearing and cursing under his breath again and again with constancy. “Fuck, fuck…Gawain, radio,” he hissed.   
  
Gawain lunged for the radio and switched to the other line, all the while watching Tristan warily. He switched to the right channel and got ready to speak…  
  
25.   
  
Lancelot was all-too-happy to be some distance from Tristan as they went about their work. His cheek was an angry purple that spoke of how much he was glad to be so far. The periphery inside the museum was important and Lancelot had assigned himself and Arthur to it, knowing that not only did it keep people out, but it also kept people  _in_  and with two of them, they withstood a chance against Tristan.  
  
The hiss of their radio caught Lancelot’s attention. It had been turned off until just recently to avoid people in the alleyway outside overhearing anything and calling the police about suspicious behaviour.   
  
“We’ve got trouble,” Gawain was announced darkly over the secure line.  
  
Lancelot watched warily as Arthur picked up the communication device and stalked into a corner to reply. “What kind of trouble?”  
  
“I think we were set up.”  
  
“What?” Lancelot hissed, sure that he’d heard wrong. Either that or Lancelot was going to give in to the erratic breathing patterns he had begun to feel the moment he’d heard Gawain say the word ‘trouble’. “How?” he demanded, storming over to Arthur, who looked the picture of patience.  
  
He never did understand how the man did it.  
  
“It’s not like it’s supposed to  _be_. Or, it is. It’s not the way it’s supposed to be. We discovered a… _ow_ , fuck’s sake, Galahad, hurry it up, we found a bit of a trap in the alarm code, but Gareth pushed through it.”  
  
Lancelot met Arthur’s gaze over the radio and in addition to the erratic breathing, Lancelot felt his heart plummet down into his stomach.  
  
He yanked the radio from Arthur’s hands. “Gawain, what is going on there?” he demanded.   
  
“He got shot,” Galahad’s voice came back over the radio. “Tristan shot him and we think that bitch Guinevere set us up. Her codes and passwords are all over the change in security,” he snarled and Lancelot could hear the sneer over the comm.  
  
“We think she’s here,” Gawain tiredly added from the other end. “And I wasn’t the only one  _shot_.”  
  
Lancelot was trying to process all the information he had been given. Tristan had been a liability, but Guinevere?  
  
“Arthur?” Lancelot muttered under his breath.   
  
“I’ll send Dagonet and Bors inside, Lancelot and I will check the perimeter to see if she’s here,” he announced, giving Lancelot a firm nod. “Gareth, Isolde. Hold down the fort at the security station outside. Dag, Bors. You heard me.”  
  
With that, the radios were turned off and Lancelot and Arthur were sprinting down the pristine hallways to search for her.  
  
“You think she’ll really be alone?” Lancelot asked dubiously, barely winded from the exercise.  
  
“This isn’t about justice,” Arthur retorted. “This is about us. She wants us put away. Sense doesn’t factor into this equation. If she does find Gareth and Isolde though…”  
  
Lancelot didn’t have to ask to know. Two of  _theirs_  who probably couldn’t hold their own against Guinevere – not that Lancelot would ever in his entire life repeat that to Isolde.   
  
“Arthur,  _there_ ,” Lancelot spat out, sighting the flash of her hair from behind as he skidded around a corner and drew one of his guns, firing immediately in order to counteract the fact that she had pulled  _her_  gun on him first.  
  
In the time it took for Lancelot to fire, she had turned tail and began to run.  
  
Arthur was closing the distance though. It wouldn’t be long. She descended the stairs from the second floor to the main entrance, but Arthur’s strides were long and Lancelot let him take the lead, ready to fire again if necessary.   
  
It was in the main foyer that he caught up to her before she could get to Gareth and Isolde at the security centre and he didn’t hesitate to elbow her in the jaw, even if she was a woman. It was critical that they did this without the police showing up, or else everything that Arthur had fought for over so many years was ruined in the blink of an eye. Her gun went sliding across the marble floor as out of the corner of his eye, Arthur saw Lancelot trying to get down from the second floor to provide him some backup.  
  
Guinevere held her cheek, glaring at him as she reached for her ankle, where she no doubt was keeping another gun. Arthur grasped her by the upper arms and dragged her to the side of the room, pushing her up against an ornamental decorative display from some Scottish clan, swords clattering to the ground as she leaned forward and headbutted Arthur, sending him stumbling to the ground, grasping one of the swords in the process.  
  
They both were panting for air and Lancelot was shouting something about being there soon.  
  
Arthur rested on one knee, watching as Guinevere caught her breath, but before she could do anything else, he raised the point of the sword and kept it trained on her, slowly rising to his feet, the broadsword heavy in his hands.   
  
“Oh, honestly,” she gasped, her voice deep and hoarse, as though they’d gone the last two rounds in bed rather than in the foyer of a museum. “What are you going to do? Cut me into little ribbons? Propose ‘en guarde’ and away we go?”  
  
That, to Arthur, sounded like an invitation. “En guarde.” He lunged with his attack, keeping his swings in the wrist and the forearm and she rolled to the ground to pick up the other sword, somersaulting and gracefully moving to her feet before whirling and defending herself, the swords clanging together heavily.   
  
Arthur pushed forward and she didn’t give a single inch and their eyes met over the dull metal of the swords, glistening slightly in the moonlight that poured in through the skylight.  
  
“You’re caught this time,” Guinevere muttered, as she pivoted and jabbed, which Arthur lunged back from. “All of you.”  
  
“And you,” Arthur countered, going on the attack with broad strokes, swinging the sword like they were simply training. “Obsessed with the case. Planting a trail of evidence and disobeying protocol.”  
  
“What do you know about protocol!” she replied, sounding wild. “You’re a criminal!”  
  
“No,” Arthur muttered. “I’m a businessman,” he said and that was when he saw Lancelot, gun in the air, pointed to the ceiling. Guinevere saw it too, because she froze in mid-swing, giving Arthur the opportunity to tackle her to the ground as the bullet pierced through the skylight and sent the glass showering down.  
  
Everything seemed to slow to a perfect crawl as Arthur tackled Guinevere to the floor, ducking his head to avoid the glass and Lancelot did the same, sitting patiently and waiting, just waiting for the sounds of the glass splintering on the floor to stop. The cacophony of disaster didn’t turn on the security system, though, and Arthur and Lancelot both exhaled in relief.  
  
Gareth had done a good job.  
  
“Arthur,” Lancelot spoke urgently. “We’re running out of time.”  
  
Arthur reached for the handcuffs dangling from the back of Guinevere’s jacket and grasped them, straddling her waist to keep her on the ground and to keep himself out of a dangerous place in which her knee might just find anything. “Her legs,” he instructed. “Get them tied.’  
  
Lancelot grasped some of the nylon rope that they used for jobs like these, binding her legs as Arthur took her cuffed wrist and attached her to the radiator. “Are we going to need a gag, Lady?” he asked, very politely.   
  
She bucked and let out a fierce scream, one that echoed upwards and into the night sky. Lancelot held over a rag, slightly damp. “Here you are,” he offered. Arthur took it into hand and lightly gagged her, the substance on the rag a mild forgetting agent that Tristan had been perfecting. Arthur hated it, honestly, because it had no morals, but Lancelot was always quick to remind him of their job.   
  
Lancelot waved at Guinevere as he rose to his feet and grabbed Arthur by the hand, giving him a shove along.   
  
Everything stopped when they heard another gunshot.  
  
Arthur and Lancelot both froze in place and even Guinevere seemed to stop struggling. That had come from deep inside the museum, where Galahad, Gawain, and Tristan were supposed to be procuring the Grail.  
  
Arthur caught Lancelot’s gaze and wondered about Tristan, wondered if he had made the wrong call on letting him help. “Run,” he advised, before the both of them took off at top speed through the narrow halls of the museum’s labyrinth-like layout to get back to the Grail itself.   
  
26.   
  
It didn’t take long for Lancelot and Arthur to find their way down the halls, but it was long enough that Tristan had shut down the doors that prevented Dagonet and Bors from finding their way inside, which made the fight a lot more even; if you could consider four against one  _even_ , in any way.  
  
Lancelot rounded the corner with alarming speed and skidded to a stop when he saw Tristan holding the Grail in his hand, a gun in the other pointed directly at Galahad’s heart.   
  
“Shit,” Lancelot hissed as he heard Arthur catch up behind him.   
  
Galahad and Gawain both looked to be in poor shape, which was easily seen from even a casual glance their way. Gawain was pressing one hand to Galahad’s shoulder, but the shot had only been a graze. The lion’s share of the blood was coming from Gawain himself, who had been shot in the arm.  
  
It didn’t take a genius for Lancelot to understand that both of those bullets had come from Tristan’s gun and now he had the item they  _needed_  and Guinevere was back in the lobby.   
  
“Tristan,” Lancelot growled and no curse seemed good enough for the bile and hatred he wanted to spit forth at this. He settled for the simplest. “You’re a real fucking piece of work, you know that?”  
  
“I had to get it somehow,” Tristan pointed out. “If that meant borrowing upon your trust…”  
  
“Arthur,” Galahad spat out, all the while keeping an unsteady gun pointed at Tristan. “Can I shoot him?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“You’ve gone insane!” Lancelot accused, the words whipping past his lips with ease now, as if they couldn’t stay quiet. “Perhaps there are three ways for a Knight to go out. Jail, death, or Tristan’s way of insanity!” he snapped, stepping forward, but stopped by the way Tristan so calmly lifted his gun and moved it from Galahad’s heart to Lancelot’s head.  
  
And he wouldn’t miss this time. This time, he wouldn’t hesitate in pulling the trigger.   
  
Lancelot knew that the only thing stopping him from shooting was the fact that he would never get out alive, that Galahad, Gawain, and Arthur ( _his_ Arthur) would stop that from ever happening. There were pieces of ceiling drifting down and Lancelot surmised that the third gunshot of the evening from Tristan’s gun had been aimed skywards in an effort to…well, who knew? An attempt to get Galahad to keep quiet, a threat of further violence? Lancelot wasn’t feeling in the mood, really, to be dissecting a madman’s brain. After all, that madman just happened to have a gun pointed in his direction. A thing like that could persuade a man to skip over all the niceties and get straight to the point.  
  
“Tristan,” Arthur spoke quietly, inching to the right slightly, hands in the air and away from his gun. “Let’s talk. There’s absolutely no reason we can’t be civil.”  
  
“He has a gun pointed at Lancelot,” Galahad spat out the words with vitriol as he shoved his mask against Gawain’s wound a little harder, scrabbling to keep as much of it off the floor as possible. With Guinevere so close, Dagonet wouldn’t have much time to clean the place, even if they had all the equipment. If she got loose…  
  
Lancelot didn’t even want to think of that.   
  
“Clearly, none of us see the obvious solution,” Arthur continued to speak, as though Galahad had never said a word.  
  
“The obvious?” Tristan echoed. “The pup pumped me full of tranquilizers and you kept me tied up and now you want to talk,” he said, words thick and low. “Forgive me, Arthur, but my tongue isn’t very loose today. You see, I don’t trust any of you the same as you don’t trust me.”  
  
“There is no reason for that,” Arthur nearly snapped, but coming from him it still sounded as calm as still-waters. “Think, Tristan, think logically. You need it for a ritual and we need it to be sold and provided we do this quickly enough, we can both achieve what we want.”  
  
Now Lancelot was looking at Arthur as though he was the one who’d lost his mind. He could have hissed a dozen things about the value of the piece or the way the police were going to descend on  _them_  in an instant flat, considering Guinevere knew it was them and if they found the Grail in Tristan’s possession, that meant game over and that meant many more nights in jail cells. Arthur had to know what he was doing, he wouldn’t just turn them over like that.   
  
And so, Lancelot had faith.  
  
Tristan seemed to be at least listening and he seemed to even be considering Arthur’s words. “How long would I have?”  
  
“Twelve hours to perform your rituals. We’d sell it on the market in the morning,” Arthur negotiated, stepping between Tristan’s gun and Lancelot. “Put that down while we talk, it’s not civil,” he directed.   
  
Instead of doing that, Tristan just shifted the gun to press to Arthur’s temple, whirling him so that he was in a position reminiscent of most hostage situations and just the sight of it made Lancelot’s blood boil to the point that it was a miracle that he hadn’t blown Tristan’s brains out at that point. He took deep, deep breaths. Arthur had a look on his face that Lancelot knew well; knew more than well.  
  
It was the  _I have a plan_  look and Lancelot took solace in the fact that Arthur really did have a plan or was lying to comfort the others. Either way, it gave Lancelot the patience to not commit a murder of one of his employees. To their side, Gawain was digging out the fake piece with shaking hands. “One of you, replace the thing,” he directed. “We’ll get blood all over it.”  
  
Lancelot didn’t move. Neither did Tristan. Arthur was incapable of it for the time being and it took another fifteen seconds for Tristan to gesture at Lancelot with the gun. “You do it,” he ordered and it was in those fifteen seconds that everything changed. No sooner were those words out of his mouth, but Arthur had knocked the gun out and had ducked, plunging a fist into Tristan’s thigh.   
  
Tristan staggered backwards and all four men knew that he was armed with knives, further guns, other weapons he could have used against them.   
  
But he just stared at them.  
  
And then he passed out on the floor.  
  
“Did you hit a pressure point I don’t know about?” Lancelot asked Arthur while replacing the Grail precisely the way it should be – it was done by the very best of forgers they could find in London and would at least buy them some time while they got the true Grail off to their buyer.   
  
Arthur opened his palm to reveal a very small syrette that, from the label, appeared to be one of Tristan’s own concoctions.   
  
“I know that,” Galahad spoke up, getting to his feet with a mild amount of trouble. “It’s a variation on Dagonet’s Compound. Five times as powerful, meant for very large men…”  
  
“Or very problematic situations,” Arthur finished his sentence, looking over his shoulder to Tristan on the floor. “Get him tied up, get Gareth to open the doors, and tell Dagonet to clean up this mess,” he directed. “You two,” he said to Gawain and Galahad. “Straight back to Headquarters to get cleaned up and Lancelot and I will take the Grail to be sold straightaway.”  
  
With something as simple as a nod, all of them went about fulfilling their orders and Lancelot didn’t even mind that Arthur was encroaching on his territory and giving the orders. That was mostly because Lancelot was still replaying the last five minutes in his mind.   
  
He had the Grail tucked away and they were hurrying out the back way when he thought it prudent to ask. “You never intended to actually make a deal with him, right?” he asked, unsure of what had been going through Arthur’s mind at that moment.  
  
“We needed time. I bought it for us.”  
  
The relief in Lancelot flooded his face and as he loaded the bag containing the Grail into the car, he felt a kiss against his neck and turned to see Arthur just standing there as he wound his arms around Lancelot’s hips. “What?” Lancelot asked.  
  
“I love you,” Arthur said, very seriously. “For having faith in me. And for not shooting.”  
  
“I love you for staying alive,” Lancelot said pointedly. “Don’t  _worry_  me like that, I’m getting precariously close to being in risk of heart attacks, you know.”  
  
Arthur just chuckled as he got in the car and they began their three hour drive to the pre-arranged meeting place at a small little diner in some tiny town that was known for absolutely nothing at all.   
  
27.   
  
The sun had risen and the day had begun as though nothing had changed in the world.  
  
The television at the headquarters was on as reporters talked in worried tones regarding the stolen Grail. There had been various detectives to speak about the possibility of suspects, but not a one of those officers was Guinevere herself, which oddly brought about something of a sick calm, as if ignoring the storm meant it would dissipate. While most of the Knights enjoyed the quiet thrill that came with getting ahead of the law, they all equally knew that having such a bitter enemy was a disaster in the making.   
  
Isolde had been sent home after Dagonet promised that she could do nothing for Tristan. She hadn’t left before swearing at Tristan in Gaelic, slapping him until she was crying and spitting out curses, her fists balling up and the slaps became punches.  
  
No one stopped her. It wasn’t even that they were afraid of what she might do to  _them_  (which was a constant worry), it was that each of the Knights thought that Tristan had it coming.  
  
Gareth had taken Galahad and Gawain back to their apartment. They were all patched up and would need no hospital stay, according to the message that Gareth had left on the machine that morning. Gareth sounded shaken, as if he still was in disbelief about what he had done the night before (which had been good work, even Galahad had admitted that).   
  
Bors had the task of finding their buyer and making sure the deal had gone swiftly, seeing as he’d been one of Bors’ own contacts and Lancelot believed in smooth customer relations, if nothing else. He’d insisted on keeping it close to home, seeing as the cause was close to the heart. Lancelot and Arthur had returned from the trade and they had all taken necessary precautions to sever ties between them and the heist, which involved destroying most of the expensive equipment they had used. The very last thing they needed was something to go awry in the final stages of the plan.   
  
That left Dagonet.  
  
Tristan had been secured in the training room with thick ropes and other than Isolde, no one had even attempted to look at him, nor dare to speak a word to his face. Dagonet thought it might have something to do with the fact that they might simply let loose with a gun while the anger still ran so high.  
  
Dagonet found it difficult to be angry any longer. He had felt his fury ebb out of him in his younger days and now found patience a better tactic than rage. Now, with Tristan so volatile, it seemed that he was the only one who was counted on to take care of him. ‘Dispose of him’ had been Lancelot’s exact words, but Dagonet had other plans in mind.   
  
They mostly had to do with vengeance, which he was sure that Tristan would appreciate.   
  
He had been drugged continuously to maintain the dosage that Arthur had given him back in the room at the museum and Dagonet had personally monitored his levels, allowing him to taper off the dose and come around by the time early morning had faded away and the day was upon them.  
  
There was something like icy rage in Tristan’s eyes, but Dagonet couldn’t be scared any longer by the evil that lived in all of them. He had seen the best and worst of people and still believed that they fluctuated between the poles on a daily basis. Tristan would return from that anger, he believed. It would just take time.  
  
“It’s gone, isn’t it.” Tristan’s words were slow and sure, despondent and furious all at once.  
  
“Your chance, Tristan, has been gone more years than you think,” Dagonet agreed, dragging a chair over and sitting opposite of the violent man. He refused to untie him and had kept him on a very low dosage of drugs to render his senses just the slightest bit blurry. After all, they had to take every precaution in these crucial after-hours of the robbery. “Why Dinidan?”  
  
“I loved him.”  
  
“You love Isolde,” Dagonet countered. “You love me. Why Dinidan?”  
  
There was no answer.  
  
Dagonet already knew the answer, but had been hoping Tristan might acknowledge why it was. He had hoped that Tristan would be aware of the reasons, but instead, they sat in the thickness of an awkward silence for many, many minutes.   
  
“They’re asking you to be taken care of,” Dagonet informed Tristan. “You’ll be released from duty as soon as you’re deemed fit enough to be untied. You’ll be staying with me, the arrangements have already been made. I’m taking time away from Bors and Vanora while they go through the treatments.” This was the most Dagonet had spoken in years and that fact wasn’t lost on Tristan, who stared at Dagonet and seemed to be hanging upon his every word. “There are things to be done. But first, why Dinidan?”  
  
“I was a different man back then,” Tristan finally answered.  
  
“I know.”  
  
“I was a better man.”  
  
That was met by a heavy nod from Dagonet – a nod of agreement. Dagonet had never felt the need to lie to his friends, even when the truth was blunt and harsh by the light of day. He could not find the sense in lying to make Tristan feel better and so, he simply didn’t. “There are things to be done,” he spoke quietly, but with enough import to the words that Tristan could understand that Dagonet didn’t simply mean that had to talk or find new items.   
  
There was a task to be done.  
  
“Can you be counted on to work?” Dagonet asked, his palm hovering over the ropes that bound Tristan thickly. His other hand was concealed behind his back and he refused to show it to Tristan. Not yet.  
  
“Probably not.”  
  
“I thought as much,” Dagonet admitted and using the syringe in his concealed hand, he jabbed it and applied slight pressure to allow the liquid within (an extremely strong tranquilizer) to flood through Tristan’s system, rendering him unconscious once more. “It’s why I took precautions.”  
  
Only when Tristan was fully unconscious did Dagonet begin to untie every last thick rope binding him down.  
  
“We have work to do,” Dagonet murmured and carried Tristan in the direction of the parking lot and the waiting car.   
  
28.   
  
She freed herself after hours of struggling and working to loose her knife from her ankle and get the ropes cut. Her wrists were bruised from all the maneuvering that took and the handcuffs wouldn’t come loose on their own. She had been left to wait for backup to flood the museum, but she’d had no way of calling them.  
  
Her own stupid personal vendetta, her sheer blindness in wanting to  _capture_  them had done her in, in the end. She hated herself for it, because she was so close. She could have had them.   
  
“Boss,” one of the PC’s greeted, not saying another word as he freed her from the cuffs and she tossed the ropes aside, rubbing delicately at her wrists while storming inside the museum, making her way down the labyrinth-like halls in an effort to find out if the damage had been done.  
  
She had heard the gunshots, too, of course.  
  
They had given her the slightest glimmer of hope that something had gone wrong with their plan and they hadn’t made off with the pricy treasure. They hadn’t come back out the front way, which made her wish she had set up guards on the back doors instead of trying to flank that position by herself, which made her want nothing more than to find her way back in time and do it  _right_. It didn’t take long once she was freed for her to pull herself together and tie her hair back in order to put on a strong and stoic face and discover the lengths of the damage.   
  
She was headed directly for the Grail itself.  
  
Her fellow coworkers, her higher-ups, and her underlings all knew better than to mess with her at that particular moment. There was a very good reason she’d earned the nickname of Dragon Lady from some of the new recruits and that was because she was deadly when the circumstances called for it.  
  
And today was a very, very good circumstance for it.   
  
She was going to tear someone’s head off if she got the chance and there would be blood, specifically the blood of the guilty. She was tired of being the laughingstock of the precinct and there was absolutely no way in the world she was going to let them get ahead of her a second time. Every guard she passed was met with a piercing and icy glare along with her badge and she stormed into the main room, searching for something, for a clue, for…  
  
“You there,” she ordered in a deep voice, pointing to one of the PC’s who was scanning the ground.   
  
He rose to his feet and seemed to tremble as she came in front of him, looking him up and down. “Why is the Grail sitting right there? Where’s the trace of anything? Broken glass, ropes, guns, blood, bullets!” The ceiling even looked as if it had a piece of it  _carved_  out and she was sure that there had once been a bullet imbedded there and now it was gone, leaving just a chunk of ceiling missing. Guinevere pressed her tongue to her upper mouth and glared at the young man before her. “What is going on!”  
  
“It’s a f-fake, D-detective,” he stammered, gesturing to the piece. “It had an envelope on it that was addressed to you,” he said, turning to pick up a thin white envelope with a pair of gloves and tweezers, handing it to her precariously. “We can’t seem to find much of anything. It’s like it’s been swept clean by a couple of pros. We’ll keep looking, obviously” he hurriedly added, seeing as Guinevere was skewering him with looks alone, if she had her way.   
  
Guinevere yanked on a pair of plastic gloves and hastily took the envelope from his hands, pacing the impeccably clean floor (the sound of her heels echoing under the dome of the main room) and her eyes continually darted around the room to search for a piece of evidence that somehow, forensics might have missed. It was impossible that there was nothing, they weren’t  _that_  good. There had to be a piece of evidence somewhere.  
  
She dragged out the paper and on it were two words in plain black typed font:  
  
YOU LOSE.  
  
The sound of her heels storming out of the room accompanied the barely-audible noise of a single sheet of paper falling to the floor. “Find something,” was all she snapped to the PC’s and then she was gone.   
  
29.   
  
Tristan and Dagonet had made their escape from the museum because Dagonet had drugged the other man unconscious with the very concoctions that he himself had brewed. He had driven him to a lavish home on the outskirts of the city and sat in the front seat, keeping an eye on Tristan’s prone form in the back. Isolde had made sure to go through the clean-up with Arthur and Lancelot and provide extra hands while Galahad and Gawain were given medical attention and Dagonet knew that with her critical eye, not a thing would be missed.  
  
Dagonet had other business to attend to. He had known of the man who had killed Dinidan for weeks now, but hadn’t told Tristan of this information, knowing that he couldn’t bring himself to handle it.  
  
But now, it was time.  
  
Galahad and Gawain would heal as they always did and one day, they would trust Tristan with their lives again, though it would take more than simple hours and days to reach that point. Tristan had made expert cuts in severing the ties of trust, as clean and precise as any kill. Dagonet sometimes wondered why his faith in the cold man never flickered and believed it to be because he knew Tristan best. He knew that no matter what he did, there would be a moment in which it would fade away and become something of the past, never to be thought of again.  
  
It was hours after twilight when Tristan first roused.   
  
Dagonet was watching when he did.  
  
“You drugged me,” Tristan mumbled, the words fuzzy and stuck together. In fact, the accusation sounded almost appreciative. Dagonet lifted the vial of serum that he had used to inject Tristan and that was met with a knowing smile. “You did. Nice choice.”  
  
“I had to use more than an average dose,” Dagonet promised the other man as he adjusted the suit-jacket he wore and exited the car, tucking a silver gun into his back pocket while opening the back door. “We’re here.”  
  
“Where would here be?” Tristan asked, sliding into a vertical position in the seat; an effort to recoup some lost dignity.   
  
“Code name, ‘Merlin’,” Dagonet assessed aloud, memorized information passing his lips with ease. He ducked and pushed into the car in order to steady Tristan when he swayed perilously forward.   
  
It seemed the additional use of drugs was having something of an effect, yet.  
  
“We’ll wait ten minutes, then,” Dagonet said, judging from the pulse he took from Tristan to see how slow his heartrate was still.   
  
“You can tell me how you found him,” Tristan concurred, leaning heavily up against the front seat. His words were still sluggish, as though his mouth and tongue were refusing to work until the other parts of his body had woken up. Dagonet had wrapped an arm around the other man to keep him steady and to make sure that he wouldn’t slip. He knew well of Tristan’s determination and that he would force himself to be capable of doing this within the hour, if not within the ten minutes Dagonet had prescribed.  
  
So to bide the time, Dagonet very patiently explained the paper trail that had been left behind and how he had deciphered encrypted items to find the name ‘Dinidan’ within so many of the old files. It had been a revenge killing because Dinidan had killed one of his men and Merlin hadn’t taken well to that.  
  
“He’s in politics,” Dagonet explained as he smoked – mostly to have something to do with his hands. “He wanted his business swept under the rug and I think Dinidan was trying to exploit him for money.”  
  
“Idiot,” Tristan cursed under his breath with several Russian profanities to accompany the lone word.   
  
With every second that passed, Tristan seemed to regain more of his mobility and the determined iciness to his gaze told Dagonet that the morning’s outcome was settled and wouldn’t sway. Not after so many years lying in wait. Not now. Dagonet had made sure that they would have all the materials necessary for both a clean kill, but also a clean getaway as it was likely that they would need to hide from Arthur for at least a night or two.  
  
“Guards?” Tristan checked.  
  
“Disposed of,” was Dagonet’s brief answer. “Slipped something in their drink.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
Dagonet watched quietly and let the tip of his cigarette burn in the early morning light, the thick fog around them concealing them as if hired to do such a thing. Tristan worked to load his gun with fresh rounds of bullets, locking them in place with ever-growing speed and efficiency as he exited the car, leaning against the frame so it might carry his weight in those last moments while he recuperated. They stood there, just watching the palatial house lie in wait for the storm that was about to hit. Dagonet knew Tristan well enough to know that he would wait until he was in full control of himself before they made a move and so, they waited longer than they might have if this was simply a regular job and not a kill that would forever stay with Tristan.  
  
“How are we doing this?” Tristan asked.  
  
“Make it look like a suicide. Gareth hacked in for us, put a note on the computer.” At Tristan’s searching look, Dagonet met it with one of his own. “I didn’t tell him why.”  
  
“So tomorrow,” Tristan spoke aloud with the hint of something dark and cruel on his face in the form of a smile. “The world will wake up with one less asshole in its ranks. He’ll be dead and everyone will think he did it to himself. Good.” He stole the cigarette directly from Dagonet’s mouth and took a long drag of it, leaning back inside the car to put it out rather than leave any incriminating evidence around.  
  
“And will that be enough?” Dagonet asked, eyes on the house and not on Tristan.  
  
“It has to be.”  
  
Tristan sounded resigned to it, but there was truth to his words. If it wasn’t enough and Tristan felt he had to pursue other avenues to sate his desire to see blood, he would be taken out of the picture at some point. While Tristan was widely regarded as one of the best, he couldn’t be the best all the time and at some point, he would be found and killed. And for a man like Tristan, being killed in such a manner was degrading and demeaned just about everything he had spent his life doing. So he would behave because he had to. When he snuffed out this man’s life, it would be the end of a years-long vendetta and it would have to be enough.   
  
It took another twenty-five minutes before Tristan righted himself and stood as tall as he could, eyes focused on the main bedroom.  
  
“Come on,” Tristan encouraged, shoving two additional pistols into his trenchcoat and storming off into the fog, letting the haze surround and swallow him up.  
  
Dagonet debated the partaking in one more cigarette and eventually abandoned the vice for the prospect of seeing this chapter of Tristan’s life coming to its long-delayed end.   
  
He lingered behind, knowing that he was not the main character of this drama and that he had to give Tristan the lead. He was there to make sure control was kept. He made sure the alarm didn’t sound and that the phones were blocked from making any calls, he made sure the neighbours didn’t hear screaming, and he made sure that Tristan didn’t go off the script. His steps were measured and slow and he watched Tristan ascend the stairs with rope in his hands.  
  
There was barely even the sound of a struggle as Tristan broke into the bedroom, dragged the sleeping man from bed, pistol-whipped him into consciousness, and tied him to the nearest chair.  
  
To the man nicknamed Merlin’s credit, he barely reacted.  
  
Blood trickled down his cheek from a bleeding eye and he kept a knowing gaze on Tristan, barely acknowledging Dagonet’s presence in the room. Dagonet had a habit of blending into the walls, even as big as he was, but in this case it seemed that neither of the other men was even willing to acknowledge him that morning.  
  
“Tristan,” Merlin said evenly, staring up through his bruises and contusions that Tristan had taken time to give him. He even went so far as to smile calmly. “I was waiting for this day. My guards?”  
  
“Not here,” Tristan curtly replied, knotting the last of the ropes as he stood before Merlin and dug out his gun. “This will be short and simple. You’re going to admit to killing him. Then you’re going to kill yourself.”  
  
He was met with silence.  
  
Dagonet could feel something in him turning awry. Merlin wouldn’t give Tristan what he wanted and it seemed as though all the torture in the world wouldn’t bring the words out of him to admit just what Tristan would have wanted him to speak. They didn’t have that large of a window, especially when clean-up was factored in and though he was inwardly panicking, Dagonet never let a thread of it show on the surface. He merely cleared his throat in a very noncommittal way.   
  
Tristan paced back and forth in front of Merlin and glanced up to catch Dagonet’s eye finally, when time pushed forward and every second brought them closer to being caught.  
  
“You’re sure?” Tristan asked, quietly.   
  
“Yes.”  
  
Swiftly, without even waiting for Merlin to say another word or rain down the room with more silence, Tristan cocked the safety back and crossed the room and shoved the gun up against his temple. “I know it was you,” he whispered to him and pulled the trigger without a second of hesitation, blood splattering all over the room and Tristan both. He stepped away and licked a droplet of Merlin’s blood from his upper lip as a serene smile broke through on his face and he turned to Dagonet, gesturing to the dead body. “Well? How’s my aim?”  
  
“Perfect, as ever,” was Dagonet’s calm reply. “Now let’s see how your cleaning is.”  
  
It had to be enough.  
  
Gods, Dagonet hoped this would be enough.  
  
He kept one careful eye on Tristan the whole of the time as they worked, as ropes came loose and the gun was prepared and placed into Merlin’s hand. Dagonet watched for signals and signs that something was still amiss, but that serene smile had yet to leave Tristan’s lips and when the scene was set and the suicide note was brought up on the computer, the smile had widened.   
  
“You’re happy,” Dagonet noted.  
  
“Am I? I think I finally feel  _peace_ ,” Tristan admitted, turning to glance at Dagonet. “Come, I owe Isolde an explanation for all of this.”  
  
“She’ll be upset she didn’t get to come.”  
  
Dagonet thought, hoped, that maybe, just maybe, it was actually over.  
  
“She’s always upset about something or other. This’ll just add to the pile.”  
  
Dagonet gave a quiet sound of agreement as he trailed behind Tristan once again to survey a cleaned room. It was done and it would have to be enough. Whether it would be would reveal itself with time -- which revealed all things in the end; even this.  
  
30.   
  
Bors came home with a single slip of paper within his hands.   
  
Vanora hadn’t slept a wink in what seemed like a full day. From the moment that the relic was in the possession of the Knights, she had been on edge. Her eyes had fully formed bags beneath them and her hair was more like a bird’s nest than it had ever been before. Her teeth had been gritted and every time one of the children would ask her a question, it took all of her patience not to snap. She had set herself in the chair and hadn’t let herself move until Bors came in the door. She’d closed down the bar and kept a glass of wine to keep her company in the solitude and the worry.  
  
Dagonet had been out to do his own business and they all seemed to be in a great tizzy after they had finished the job, as if there were a million loose ends to tie up and they only had so many hands.   
  
She didn’t mind. She only cared about one loose end.  
  
It took hours and hours, but then he appeared in the door like a dark angel, beaming away as he clasped the piece of paper in his hands, flanked by Gawain and Galahad. Vanora was on her feet immediately, eyes wide as she sprinted across the room and jumped into his arms.  
  
“Oof, Vanora, love,” Bors grunted, handing off the paper to Gawain so he could wrap both arms around her tightly.   
  
Then the kissing started.   
  
Gawain cleared his throat, hobbling his way over to a chair – where two of the youngest peered up at him and he smiled right back. “Hello,” he offered, trying to look anywhere but at Bors and Vanora, who had gone from light and innocent pecks into a rather disturbing show of public affection. He winced mildly and beckoned Galahad over. At the very sight of him, the children shrieked with joy, nearly tackling him to the ground. “No, no, _careful_ ,” Gawain warned, the sound of his panic audible in his voice.  
  
Galahad’s gunshot to the shoulder had been a graze, but that still meant that Galahad would feel the pain from it.   
  
Nonetheless, the children had managed to pin Galahad to the floor and the younger man didn’t seem to mind so entirely much as he played with them and entertained their questions while Bors and Vanora finished up. When they were  _finally_  through, Gawain lifted his good arm up in the air to hand off the cheque.  
  
“You’ve really done it?” Vanora asked. “You’ve really sold it off?”  
  
“Numbers don’t lie, sweet,” Bors guaranteed in a gruff voice. “There’s more than enough here to put away into savings and pay for enough treatments for any and all the little brats that need it.”  
  
Gawain watched as Vanora took the cheque, keeping it out of harms’ way as she pushed in to start yet another round of kissing that Gawain had to look away from. In the process, he managed to get all the kids’ eyes looking to the wall, trying to find what Gawain was so intent on staring at.  
  
“When you’re done with all that, we’ll be here waiting to celebrate,” Galahad pointed out petulantly, voice hoarse.  
  
The sulking fit was dissipated before it could even start, however, when three of the children decided to pounce on Galahad and tickle him without any sign of mercy in their eyes.   
  
“That’s my litter,” Bors said proudly. He turned to Vanora, lips brushing against her cheek as he turned far more serious. “It’s all for you, love,” he murmured, voice deep and moved to gruff emotion. “Every pound of that cheque, it’s for you and the kids and I’d do it time and time again if it meant keeping you safe.”  
  
“Bors,” Vanora murmured affectionately.  
  
“Marry me.”  
  
Vanora smiled slowly, lips curving up with a satisfied and smug look. “Only if you explain the new arrangement to Dagonet,” she countered.  
  
“That a yes?”  
  
“Maybe.”  
  
“Could’ve just said so!”  
  
“Then where’s the fun? All right, c’mon boys,” Vanora called to Gawain and Galahad. “Tuck the kids into bed and you can have free drinks at the bar tonight, provided you keep your hands where we can all see them!”  
  
“You’re the best, Vanora,” Galahad announced warmly, hopping to his feet and wrapping an arm around her small shoulders. “But really, you should be careful about marrying Bors. Imagine how much more he’ll let himself go.”  
  
“You get a five second head-start, whelp, then I hit you,” Bors warned.  
  
Galahad, being a smarter man than he was years before, took the start.  
  
Vanora and Bors took longer than usual when it came to putting the children to bed, all the while Gawain spent watching from a distance, happy to simply bask in something that had finally gone  _right_.   
  
31.   
  
The drinks were plentiful and given freely in the early grey light of the morning. The ground still sat soaked from the dew of the early hours, but that hadn’t put any of them off. While all the Knights were yet wary around Tristan, that didn’t stop the occasional tug into an embrace and it didn’t stop them from raising their mugs in salute to their fallen brothers, those that surrounded them and had gone long before them.  
  
Gareth sat awkwardly at a distance, as though feeling he didn’t belong.  
  
Gawain and Galahad had pulled up a blanket from one of the cars and had splayed out on it, even going so far as to dragging Tristan down with them, recovering as best as they could after Gawain had bore a bullet in his leg and Galahad had one to his arm, courtesy of Tristan’s gun and a trigger-happy finger. Gareth couldn’t understand it, this  _forgiveness_  that came so easily after so terrible a deed.   
  
Bors and Dagonet whispered quiet words lost in the morning light and Lancelot bowed his head reverently with them, never speaking a word louder than it needed to be.  
  
Arthur had yet to stop moving and finally came to a rest by Gareth, crouching down behind him. The ground gave way slightly and Gareth noted that there was mud coating the ends of Arthur’s trousers. “You haven’t run off yet,” Arthur noted.  
  
“Was I expected to?” Gareth asked warily, fingers tapping the face of his watch again and again for something to do. He felt all the world like an outsider looking in on a portrait of a scene that he’d never be in and not for the first time that week did he wonder just how much else of Gawain’s life was shrouded in this thick cloud of mystery.   
  
Running away from all of this seemed like the smart thing to do and for a smart boy like Gareth, he occasionally made some very stupid decisions.  
  
“Your brother told me stories about you from the moment he joined us,” Arthur replied, not answering Gareth’s question. “When you were both younger, there was no end to the stories. He wanted to tell you what it is he was. What he is.”  
  
“Then why didn’t he?” Gareth had to ask.  _Why keep his life so painfully close?_  
  
Arthur turned his gaze not to the men who were deep within their cups, but rather to the moss-covered gravestones that set the backdrop of a content scene in a morbid place. Gareth still felt a chill down his back every time his brain reminded him that they were in a  _graveyard_. Named were etched with great care and the lives were always too short, Gareth had noticed.  
  
“He understood the need to keep you away,” Arthur remarked lowly and gravely. “He wanted to protect you because he loved you so much.”  
  
It wasn’t something that Gareth could easily associate with his older brother, who had been such a distant figure through his life. It was easier to think of him as simply neglectful or too involved in his own life that he never cared for what Gareth ever did or thought.  
  
He had learned better.  
  
Arthur clasped Gareth tightly on the shoulder with a grip that bespoke of the quiet strength that lay in his hands. Lancelot glanced over and loudly beckoned him over to the glare of Dagonet and Bors, but Arthur chuckled as he went, accepting a cup of ale from Galahad on the way.   
  
They were all smiling, all laughing, all happy.   
  
Gareth kept to his place on the outside as he watched the mugs refilled with more ale, until it toppled over the edges and the ground wasn’t just wet with dew, but with the victorious drink that these Knights had brought for themselves.  
  
“Gareth, you prick, get over here,” Galahad shouted loudly and earning a smack from Gawain, Lancelot,  _and_  Tristan at the same time. “Ow,” he scowled and complained, rubbing at the back of his head. Gareth couldn’t help the pull of a smile upon his own lips and pushed to his feet to stagger along and take hold of one of the mugs, shaking fingers clasping the side.  
  
There was money in the bank and there were treatments on the way. Gareth hadn’t seen Bors stop smiling and he certainly hadn’t seen that proud look dissipate from his watery eyes.  
  
“Knights,” Arthur announced in his deep tone, the one that commanded the respect of anyone within listening distance. He raised his mug to the sky, to the graves, to those who had gone before. “We are the lucky ones,” he murmured, eyes falling on each man – each, who had stopped smiling in that moment of quiet reflection – and each bowed their head low. “We must never forget that we are the lucky few.”  
  
“Never,” came the unified and solemn chorus.  
  
They sat there and stayed until the sun came up.  
  
Even then, they were hesitant to leave their brothers, the ones who had come before and would always be with them.   
  
THE END


End file.
